“Rewriting Mideast history and geography at Republican debate”*
I agree with everything Ms. Karam has to say here, with the exception of her headline (or her editor’s… I know how these things work). To “rewrite” a history or geography (or literature, or faith, et al) presupposes a scintilla of initial familiarity with those fields. And that is a familiarity that the entire GOP field lacks entirely, with the ironic exception of Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose chances at winning the Republican nomination are roughly on par with my winning “American Ninja Warrior” and whose views on foreign policy qualify him as not a Reagan, but rather a Goldwater Republican. Sadly, that ignorance of the tortured history of the modern Middle East is commonplace among an American public that gets to choose the one person with the ultimate say over policy in that part of the world. I doubt most Americans know much about Iran other than that it’s evil and wants “death to America!” — certainly not that the CIA overthrew a democratically elected leader in Mosaddegh, who replaced an autocrat that we reinstated.
I doubt the vast majority of Americans — and most sadly, most American lawmakers — could even recognize the significance or even be familiar with the events of 1453, the fallout from the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Balfour Declaration, the impact of the ideas of Theodor Herzl, Jabotinsky… but I digress.
(*—Title quoted from Ms. Karam’s linked piece in Al-Arabiya of 12 November 2015)
