From what I've read, even the Mamluks & Ottomans didn't take their own caliphal control seriously. The Mamluk caliphs were completely figureheads who lived fairly plush lives at the sultans' whim, while the Ottomans only started using the title to any degree after the Russians agreed to recognize them as caliphs over the Crimean Tatars in the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca in 1774.
It's plausible that ISIS is capable of establishing a radical state if the Iraqi government & others remain divided, but for them to have any semblance of caliphal authority, they'd have to occupy Mecca, and that's not likely to happen.
"The Soviet patronage of Baathist Iraqis lasted until the Gulf War in 1990-91."
Last I checked, WE backed Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War throughout the 1980s. Iraq (and many of its neighbors) have been playthings for the US, USSR, and various European powers for a century-plus. That's why the region's so thoroughly screwed up.
True. Washington had no problem with Texas seceding from Mexico in the 1840s; only dispute over slavery prevented that "republic" from becoming a state more quickly afterward. That's the closest parallel I can see to the Crimea situation, but Russia has a deeper historic claim to Crimea than we did to Texas.
Although there are certainly potentially war-causing issues here, the WSJ's neutrality is rather suspect, given corporate America's history of imperialism and intervention all over the planet.
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From what I've read, even the Mamluks & Ottomans didn't take their own caliphal control seriously. The Mamluk caliphs were completely figureheads who lived fairly plush lives at the sultans' whim, while the Ottomans only started using the title to any degree after the Russians agreed to recognize them as caliphs over the Crimean Tatars in the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca in 1774.
It's plausible that ISIS is capable of establishing a radical state if the Iraqi government & others remain divided, but for them to have any semblance of caliphal authority, they'd have to occupy Mecca, and that's not likely to happen.
"The Soviet patronage of Baathist Iraqis lasted until the Gulf War in 1990-91."
Last I checked, WE backed Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War throughout the 1980s. Iraq (and many of its neighbors) have been playthings for the US, USSR, and various European powers for a century-plus. That's why the region's so thoroughly screwed up.
True. Washington had no problem with Texas seceding from Mexico in the 1840s; only dispute over slavery prevented that "republic" from becoming a state more quickly afterward. That's the closest parallel I can see to the Crimea situation, but Russia has a deeper historic claim to Crimea than we did to Texas.
Although there are certainly potentially war-causing issues here, the WSJ's neutrality is rather suspect, given corporate America's history of imperialism and intervention all over the planet.