Chaos and conflict have become constants in the Middle East. Frustrated U.S. policymakers tend to blame ancient history. Said President Barack Obama in his State of the Union speech, the region’s ongoing transformation was “rooted in conflicts that date back millennia.”
Of course, war is a constant of human history. But while today’s most important religious divisions go back thousands of years, bitter sectarian conflict does not. The Christian Crusades and Muslim conquests into Europe ended long ago.
All was not always calm within the region, of course. Sectarian antagonism existed. Yet religious divisions rarely caused the sort of hateful slaughter we see today.
Tolerance lived on even under political tyranny. The Baathist Party, which ruled Iraq and Syria until recently, was founded by a Christian. Christians played a leading role in the Palestinian movement.
The fundamental problem today is politics. Religion has become a means to forge political identities and rally political support.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/mideasts-problem-politics-not-history
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