6 Comments

> I wanted to focus on why conflicts emerged in autocratic regimes and why I believe they will inevitably continue to occur.

Does the answer contain "over 2 centuries of western plundering, colonialism, and interventions, going on strong today too"?

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I don't deny Western colonialism or its impact however neither do I believe that denies regimes like Assad's agency in their policies, formations, or acts.

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Dec 1Edited

Depends, one side is the 10,000 pound global gorillas - Britain and France had almost the whole world enslaved as colonies, and the US is the superpower that has meddled, supported dictatorships, crashed economies, invaded etc the whole world for the next 70 plus years. The other side is a small country, f...d over again and again, along with the whole region, by those gorillas.

Sure, they have some agency. How much in comparison? Where those countries ever left to develop on their own? Why do countries half the world away even have a say in their matters?

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A struggle for development does not give an excuse for sectarianism, ethnic cleansing, using gas on civilians and mass bombing of civilians. Again, like you say there are reasonable discussions to be had about development. state formation, and colonialism but in this context, it strikes me as not the central issue.

Countries can intervene based on R2P principles (ethnic cleansing, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity) which btw is something that almost every country on earth has agreed to.

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If you're working on that timescale you probably want to factor in the Ottoman Empire too.

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Yeah, but the Ottoman Empire hasn't been around for 100 years, and never pretended it's a beacon for democracy, freedom, and englightenment. I'd add in modern day Turkey though.

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