Mesopotamia / Ancient world general

This is ancient Iraq. This is where civilization began. Now it's full of terrorists, what went wrong?

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Arab colonization.

Savages always seem to take over a high civilization eventually...

huh, the iranians are the true evil then

Foreign powers keep trying to control clay that isn't theirs.

Locals get pissed off and tell them to fuck off.

this isn't /b/

>What's baghdad

Triggered Sunni

It's a very rich and fertile land on a flat alluvial plane surrounded by warlike nomadic tribes. Makes a very easy and tempting target for invasion

Just look at all the hordes that have invaded Iraq in the past

>persians
>macedonians
>Romans
>turks
>mongols
>Persians and Turks again
>English
>Americans
>ISIS

Iraq is naturally difficult to defend and is very tempting for any conqueror whether it's Timorlang or George Bush

>what went wrong?
Everything

Well Mesopotamia is pretty much the JUST region of earth. All the Seas make it so there's 5 different routes directing anyone in there. It's a fucking cross section for any empire builder.

Soil salinization. The same irrigation methods that early Mesopotamians used to flourish are what ultimately doomed them. Salt buildup rendered large swathes of the Tigris and Euphrates floodplains unworkable as farmland, and they remain so to this day. Massive drop in agricultural productivity = drop in population = fragmented and isolated city states and kingdoms ripe for conquest by roaming nomadic hoards.

All other answers are memes and should be disregarded.

This. It got fucked over by being in middle of everything.
Also Muslim civilization was the biggest rival to Christian civilization. So when Christians became the most powerful civilization on the world, it fucked them over not only physically, but also mentally, which sticked with them until this day.

The mental factor is the biggest one

>Now it's full of terrorists
what do you think it was like back then, 1950s suburban USA? it was merciless tyrants, slavery, wars, rebellions , barbarian desert nomad invasions, genocides, human sacrifice to the gods etc.

perpetual war and violence

todays middle east is child's play

retard

>This is where civilization began

No, Anatolia and the Black Sea region is where it began. The taming of the land (grasses) and beast (Bull) is the beginning of civilization.

no and you know it is not true

NOT AN ARGUMENT

>"terrorists"
You're really not exactly open to an in-depth answer, are you?