{"id":7963,"date":"2016-08-15T16:09:01","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T20:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7963"},"modified":"2016-08-15T16:09:01","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T20:09:01","slug":"the-fractured-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7963","title":{"rendered":"The fractured Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times Magazine published an extraordinary\u00a0report about the recent history of the Middle East.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7964\" style=\"width: 730px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2016\/08\/11\/magazine\/isis-middle-east-arab-spring-fractured-lands.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7964\" class=\"wp-image-7964 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/civilians-fleeing-basra.jpg\" alt=\"Civilians fleeing Basra, 2003 - The New York Times\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/civilians-fleeing-basra.jpg 720w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/civilians-fleeing-basra-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-7964\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Civilians fleeing Basra, 2003 &#8211; The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Titled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2016\/08\/11\/magazine\/isis-middle-east-arab-spring-fractured-lands.html\"><em>Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart<\/em><\/a>, it presents a comprehensive review of the recent history of Arab lands, ranging from the heyday of secular despots in the 1970s, through America&#8217;s ill-fated war in Iraq in 2003, to the present-day civil war in Syria, the fight against ISIS, the ongoing disintegration of Libya. It offers insight through the personal stories of some select characters, including a Kurdish doctor, a day laborer turned ISIS executioner, or a civil rights matriarch.<\/p>\n<p>It is a very long report, filling an entire issue of the magazine. I just read it. It was well worth the time.<\/p>\n<p>The one thing this report failed to offer is a ray of hope. Something that would stop the endless cycle of violence.<\/p>\n<fb:like href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7963' send='true' layout='standard' show_faces='true' width='450' height='65' action='like' colorscheme='light' font='lucida grande'><\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times Magazine published an extraordinary\u00a0report about the recent history of the Middle East. Titled Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart, it presents a comprehensive review of the recent history of Arab lands, ranging from the heyday of secular despots in the 1970s, through America&#8217;s ill-fated war in Iraq in 2003, <a href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7963' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,5,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-politics","category-religion","category-25-id","category-5-id","category-38-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7963"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7967,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7963\/revisions\/7967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}