Iraq: Past, Present, Future Essay -- Essays Papers

Iraq: Past, Present, Future Imagine you are back in time, in a land where water flows, date palms flourish and people abound. The part of the globe which the Greeks called Mesopotamia and we call†¦Iraq. In my paper, instead of focusing primarily on the impending war with Iraq, I will focus on why we are continually in a conflict with Iraq (and other Middle Eastern countries) through investigating the past, present and future of Iraq’s history. It is highly interesting how because of the US’ dealings with Iraq that have stretched back for the last twenty or thirty years, many people in this country have flawed senses of the rich history actually present in the region. Mesopotamia, or the fertile crescent, which housed some of the oldest civilizations known to man, has been all but forgotten about by western society, and the greatness and cultural fluidity that once persisted there has been forgotten almost entirely in this age of arbitrary borders and divisive politics. With the partitioning of Turkey at the conclusion of WWI, the middle east was segmented arbitrarily which led to political unrest in the region. Because of this unrest, there has continually been the apparent need and desire (on the part of the western powers, especially the United States) to intervene in the Middle East and especially Iraq. This is how one can explain the current situation we are in and have been in with Iraq for at least twenty years. When leadership is despotic, and these arbitrary border lines are crossed or disrespected, our government usually decides to intervene (especially if oil money is at stake) These interventions are simply patch-up solutions to what is a much larger problem: instability caused by arbitrary borde... ...Life Video and Television. Alexandria, Va. : Time-Life Video and Television (distributor), 1995. 11. Goffman, Daniel. The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe. New York : Cambridge University Press, 2002. 12. Mackey, Sandra. The Reckoning : Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein. 1st ed. New York : Norton, 2002. 13. Malam, John. Mesopotamia and the fertile crescent, 10,000 to 539 B.C. Austin, Tex. : Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 1999. 14. Tripp, Charles. A History of Iraq. 2nd ed. New York : Cambridge University Press, 2002. 15. Zadok, Ran. The earliest diaspora : Israelites and Judeans in pre- Hellenistic Mesopotamia.Tel Aviv : Diaspora Research Institute, Tel Aviv University, 2002.