The Middle East Friendship Chart • Hacker News Board

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#11

Post by keerthiko » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 9:50 AM UTC

hackerboos wrote: post #7

Iraq: The most friendly country in the middle east.

Obviously the more friendly countries in the Middle East aren't mentioned here: Oman, UAE, Qatar, because they aren't involved in any conflicts or political standoffs.

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#12

Post by tdsamardzhiev » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 9:52 AM UTC

So, no love for ISIS in the Middle East?

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#13

Post by parham » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:05 AM UTC

Since when did Iran and Turkey become enemies?

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#14

Post by cturner » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:11 AM UTC

lobotryas wrote: post #3

Huh, where's Afghanistan? Or do they kind of not matter any more in this scheme of things?

There were gaps closer to home - the non-ISIS Syrian opposition (on the ground, not the overseas committee), the Kurds.

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#15

Post by zokier » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:15 AM UTC

I suspect there could be some more insightful ordering of the entities to make the situation slightly less clusterfuck-like.

edit: http://i.imgur.com/PgXt8Md.png is bit better, there arises two kinda clear clusters of friends.

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#16

Post by higherpurpose » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:15 AM UTC

Relevant (and funny): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vZLWbqpDyQ&feature=youtu.be...

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#17

Post by waps » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:15 AM UTC

parham wrote: post #13

Since when did Iran and Turkey become enemies?

Different religions. Turkey is "sunni"/secular. Iran is Shi'a/secular. (but the other way round, Turkey's population is "moderately" sunni muslim, the state is aggresively secular. Iran, the population, I think is fair to say, is secular, the state is aggresively Shi'a muslim). The sunnis are the ones that are organising things like ISIS, and the religious cleansings ISIS is doing.

Problem is that one of the values of islam is to militarily dominate, so aside from Lebanon (and formerly Iraq), there is no example of a state with powre sharing. Even in Lebanon there is only power sharing between Christians and muslims, not between different sects of muslims. (the difference being that Christians don't see the need to exterminate muslims (just convert them, eventually), nor do muslims want to exterminate Christians, just dominate them (talking about the values of the religions here). Sunni's do want to exterminate Shi'as and vice-versa. To put it bluntly: sharia is pretty clear on the need to kill any muslim who is not the same sect as you are. But Christians/Jews can get the choice dhimma or death. So Lebanon will not blow up as easily as Iraq will)

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#18

Post by nl » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:17 AM UTC

parham wrote: post #13

Since when did Iran and Turkey become enemies?

Turkey is a NATO member. Additionally, Iran supports Assad in Syria while Turkey generally supports (some of) the rebels.

Turkey is generally seen as the leader of the secular Islamic world, while Iran is seen as the leader Shia Islam.

While they aren't shooting enemies they aren't exactly allies either.

More interestingly, the chart shows Turkey and Iraq as enemies, while in fact Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan have recently become quite close allies (!!) based on a oil and trade[1][2].

[1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/conflict-shows-new-closer-tur...

[2] http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/turk...

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#19

Post by stickydink » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:18 AM UTC

tdsamardzhiev wrote: post #12

So, no love for ISIS in the Middle East?

You might consider it a ... Danger Zone?

In fairness, I wasn't aware what the real ISIS was myself until a couple of weeks ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_L...

Re: The Middle East Friendship Chart

#20

Post by nl » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:23 AM UTC

waps wrote: post #17

parham wrote: post #13

Since when did Iran and Turkey become enemies?

Different religions. Turkey is "sunni"/secular. Iran is Shi'a/secular. (but the other way round, Turkey's population is "moderately" sunni muslim, the state is aggresively secular. Iran, the population, I think is fair to say, is secular, the state is aggresively Shi'a muslim). The sunnis are the ones that are organising things like ISIS, and the religious cleansings ISIS is doing. Problem is that one of the values o…

Turkey is probably about as strong an opponent of ISIS as there is in the middle east.

Edit: the parent comment was edited while I was writing that. There is a lot I disagree with now, bit the biggest factual problem is the idea that Lebanon "won't blow up like Iraq" seems to ignore 2 decades of civil war in Lebanon.