Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
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I am not sure the peoples of the Mid-East have a monopoly on warring for prideful reasons. The War of 1812, WWI&II, the Argentine attack on the Falklands, the Succession of the Southern States and others might well fall into that class of conflict.
People are people -- there are indeed other examples -- just that the ME provides so many in the last half century. That and the seeing compromise as weakness factor in combination...

Tequila said:
"Well, Nasser is the only one who really tried. Even Saddam, despite his bombast, never really took such things seriously - the seizure of Kuwait, for example, was an Iraqi nationalist dream since Qasim. As for the inscrutable mind of the Arabs - the spectacle of local rulers scrambling for power and advantage to the detriment of the ruled combined with constant and violent intervention by foreign powers is a tableau repeated throughout history, including in the West - the examples of pre-unification Italy, pre-Bismarck Germany, Poland, and other such unhappy lands comes to mind."
Gamel may be the only one that tried in your book but I think you're selling the goals and delusions of everyone from the Shah of Iran through the Al Sauds to the Assads and the odd Egyptian or two -- not to mention our friends Ruhalla and Muammar -- a little short. Perhaps what you meant was that Nasser was the only who who was overt and said it aloud and publicly; we could agree on that.

As for the only one? We can disagree on that.