No wriggling on my part whatsoever Snail. The 70 to 100 year thing - wrt the middle-east and the Arabian Peninsula democracy doesn't enter into it Snail, that was just another of your incorrect assumptions. I take it Snail that you have never travelled to or worked in these countries Snail - I have.

Iains, whatever has happened in the middle-east has got nothing to do with "lazy cartographers" you incorrectly assumed to be "British and French". The utterly corrupt Ottoman Empire that had been in terminal decline and failing from the mid 1800s did not consist of countries that had been conquered by the Turks, neither were there any established boundaries formed by natural features. The League of Nations that Woodrow Wilson and the Americans had a great deal to do with the setting up of, yet did not become a member of, divided up what had been the Ottoman Empire and created the countries of the middle-east - NOT solely Britain and France - If you are going to refer to events of the past then you have a duty and responsibility to get them right.

The populations of the Arabian Peninsula had no countries, most were nomadic Bedouin. Heed was paid to the advice of Col T. E. Lawrence and they were pretty much left to form their own styles of Government that took into account inter-tribal dynamics, religious considerations and differences, and hierarchy. Two areas were exceptions Palestine and the Lebanon - both were set up to be sectarian areas that afforded non-Muslim minorities a safe-haven from religious intolerance and persecution. It is little wonder that the corrupt practices that the Arabs had always been accustomed to under Ottoman rule would simply be carried over by the new rulers who were based on tribal hierarchy and rivalries.

Stu the sentence is perfectly coherent to me, however, if you would you like me to simplify it for you? Maybe chop it up to make it easier for you to understand. Would that help? - you may think there is a place in the modern social life of the United Kingdom for Sharia Law, having women treated as second class citizens, FGM, forced arranged marriage, religious intolerance, loss of freedom of speech, censorship, capital and corporal punishment enshrined and revered by the followers of the "Religion of Peace" as demonstrated by ISIS - Then more fool you.