This seems rather obvious to me.....

Submitted by Drew (United States), Jan 27, 2008 at 12:12

The tribal aspects seem very obvious to me. By analogy, the Middle East is like a bunch of fiefdoms and islands. Decades ago, the West discovered ten islands with ten people on each island. The West opened up trade with each island. 50 years later, things have changed. Each island has 100,000 people but the West's trade is through the initial ten persons on each island who now rule the islands oppressively. On each island, the 100,000 people are split, one side wanting to go back to tradition and the other half wanting modern democracy.

Unfortunately, both blame the West for interfering with the direction they want to take, because the West trades through the initial 10 persons who rule on each island.

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