One of the ironies of the Cold War was that the Soviets were more colonial and imperialist then the Americans were (most of the time, we can’t be bothered), yet accused America of the reverse.
Now it seems that one of the last bits of colonialism, dating back to end of the WWI, the Middle East is beginning to move forward.
- The Lebanese are protesting against Syria.
- Iraq is a democracy
- Afghanistan is a democracy
- Saudi Arabia had some elections.
If you want to understand the current US foreign policy, and why in a large sense, Bush is one of the most liberal presidents when it comes to foreign policy, you need to understand the cold war and the colonial period prior to WWII. Here’s my favorite book on the subject:
The Cold War: A HistoryThis book is also great; it really shows how the colonialism of England and France got us into this mess in the first place. Finding out that Israel exists because the nuts in the English Foreign Office thought that Jews secretly ran the Ottoman empire was hysterical in a “you’d have to laugh or you’d cry” kind of way:
A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
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