I am 18 1/2 years old, and with the recent events in the News, I'd like to start learning more about foreign affairs, specifically the Middle East.
I don't know the first thing about Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or any of that. I just know that ISIS comes from the Middle East, and they're bad guys. That's it.
Obviously I'm uninformed as shit, and what little I do know, I am probably misinformed about. I'd like to start learning about this stuff and become informed.
I tried asking /pol/, but obviously that was a mistake, and now I'm doing the more sensible thing and asking here.
Are there any books I can pick up on this subject with my situation in mind?
dude are you a retarded baby its not super complicated. Start with the history of the ottoman empire then go from there through the 20th century and youll have a general understanding of why things are the way they are there.
Angel Davis
literally Wikipedia
Parker Campbell
> Are there any books I can pick up on this subject with my situation in mind? Start with Herodotus.
John Russell
honestly theres probably some netflix documentaries that could help you.
too long to explain. tons of shit happened since early modern era
if you go to college no doubt they will have a class all about middle eastern politics, and will give you a quick rundown on the history
Nathan Brown
What fucking books or sites though is what I'm asking. I don't want to go to a site and be lectured about why x side is better than y.
Caleb Wood
Shouldn't he start with Islamic history?
Matthew Adams
kek
Nolan Edwards
Technically this board is forbidden to discuss shit from the past 25 years.
There's too much for a total noob on the region to learn just from a Veeky Forums thread. Go and buy some popular history books from your local book shop.
Gavin Mitchell
Pre-Islam Arabia is pretty different from Pre-Islam Iran/Syria. I'll discuss Iran/Syria with a focus on Iran.
Ancient Era: Many empires rose and fall. Assyrians were pretty significant. Largest was en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire (otherwise known as Persian Empire). It was the largest empire the world had seen at the time at the time.
Eventually the Parthian Empire conquered Iran, while the Roman empire conquered Syria. These two giants states fought each other often.
Late Antiquity: The Parthian empire was conquered by one of it's vassals and was transformed into Sasanian Empire. The Sasanian Empire caused a lot of trouble for the Byzantine Empire, once again massive wars were fought between these two nations.
My knowledge of this area and time are very rudimentary. Wikipedia knows more. The Caliphate became divided and independent kingdoms were formed out of this massive empire.
Leading up to WWI, the Ottomans started to go into a deep decline. They lost heavily in WWI, the Europeans dissolved their empire and began a colonization effort. This is seen to be one of the most destabilizing forces in the Middle East.
Today's Iran obviously hates the US for intervening with their sovereignty. During the revolution, they took many hostages from the US Embassy which made tensions even higher, but eventually released them. Tensions have decreased since 1979 but obviously are still high, and we still don't have an embassy there.
>brits support House Saud to harm the Ottomans thus support radical Islam to get a foothold. >arbitrary partitioning of the Ottoman areas >happens to have a lot of oil which modern economies depend upon. >Iran's democratic head of state Mossadegh decides to nationalize Persian oil. Brits can't have that but neither can do anything about it, run to their brutish child US >Operation Ajax commences replacing democracy with a dictatorship >Iranian dictatorship is toppled by the people who are desparate enough to replace the Shah with a theocracy >US support the eager neighjbourhood dictator Saddam >With US backing Saddam goes to war with Iran and bleeds his country dry >Meanwhile the US sell weapons to both sides >Saddam tries to get his actually well run country with a broad middle class and good education on its feet again by invading another neighbour, Kuwait >THIS neighbour however wasn't cool for the US so they wage war on Saddam and put sanctions on the country killing hundreds od thousands >in the aftermath the huge Iraqui army and administration is set on the streets with no pensions. All they know is how to fight and who the baddies are. Also they are heavily influenced by the Saudi radicals >These guys became ISIS
Jason Harris
Forget about pre-1600 epoch and start to learn European colonisation. Dont be diverted by local shit. Remember: 1900 Middle East was fully divided by White empires and all local horse-fuckers have became unreleated with all their barbarian trash like Islam and other.
Cooper White
He'll be ignoring the Safavids were actually had an alliance with Hapsburg to repel Ottomans.
>The US-installed Shah was very authoritarian and cruel to the people. The US also pushed for the Shah to lose power because he was trying to become ring leader of OPEC. The Carter administration and Britain via BBC spread propaganda supporting Khomeini's rise of power.
The Shah kept pushing for oil price hikes just after the US domestic oil production peaked. With that revenue he was embarking upon ambitious development programmes; like Trump, he wanted to make his country great again and to win the admiration and respect of the world as in the time of the ancient Persian Empire (interestingly, the current Iranian regime essentially shares the same desires for recognition, despite going to extreme lengths in rhetoric to distance itself from the Shah). Eventually, the US managed to get Saudi Arabia to undercut the official OPEC oil price and therefore undercut the Shah, which spelt disaster for the his grand plans. Revolution came shortly afterwards.
The Shah losing power was largely the fault of the Carter administration backing Khomeini, whom Carter even called a saint, and the UK spreading propaganda via BBC demonizing the Shah. The BBC was instrumental in the rise of Khomeini. The British put the last Shah in power and helped get rid of him a few decades later, after they lost control of him.
Levi James
>were actually who actually*
David Nelson
Britain was against pro-American shah. Khomeini was prepared in France.
Logan Brown
>ignoring how Saddam would've used oil as a weapon to extort the industrialized world >ignoring how Saddam sheltered various terrorists >ignoring how Saddam gassed ethnic minorities and committed genocide against the Marsh Arabs >ignoring how Saddam was engaging in a military build up that could've risked a regional arms race between the Israelis, Gulf Arabs, Iranians, and Iraqis >implying ISIS was created in 1992, after the Gulf War, and not after the Second Iraq War (2003-onward)
fuck off code pink
Colton Myers
BBC gave him a platform to preach his extremism, and BBC is an outlet for UK's propaganda. BBC, alongside USA, were fed up with the Shah for the reasons given in the leaked document.
Lincoln Hughes
>The BBC is an outlet for UK's propaganda
The BBC is literally at war with our current government which has, in response, threatened them with mass-sell offs and an end to preferential treatment.
Julian Mitchell
Well you said you went on /pol/, so I would recommend going on there for /sg/ Syria General. It's a bunch of lads who follow the conflict in the Syrian and Iraqi civil war very intensely
Hunter Reyes
>ignoring how Saddam would've used oil as a weapon to extort the industrialized world Better than using actual weapons as weapons like the US to extort the poor world
Jordan Butler
It wasn't always like that. The CIA/MI6 typically worked in close concert.
Gavin Price
Sunni/Shia split and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire are the two things you need to go
Nicholas Thompson
Actions and motives of UK are obvious. What actions of USA were against shah in your opinion?
Jack Gomez
TL;DR the SAA are fascists, IS are the brown Khmer Rouge, the Israelis are cunts but they make Arabs mad and it's highly funny, and anyone who tells you that any faction in the region isn't shitheads is lying to you.
Jacob Hernandez
>fascists You're saying it like it's a bad thing.
Carter Jones
It's why there's a civil war going on there and not in Jordan.
Arabs like their kings.
Liam Martin
>brits support House Saud to harm the Ottomans thus support radical Islam to get a foothold.
wrong as fuck
lrn2history
Aiden Sanders
>18 1/2 years old
I thought people stopped saying that whole "and a half" business once they hit puberty
Juan Miller
step 1.) Don't go on /pol/ step 2.) Find a book on the topic on libgen step 3.) Read it step 4.) Repeat
Wyatt Price
This
Mason Long
/pol/ has the best general talking about Syria. A lot of people on Veeky Forums are total know nothings who just assume and pull opinions out of their ass.
Matthew Cook
>A lot of people on Veeky Forums are total know nothings who just assume and pull opinions out of their ass. you just described /pol/
Zachary Green
cleveland the modern middle east
Charles Turner
I have yet to see another smart person on Veeky Forums.
