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Agreed, John, but Sadam Hussein did keep a sort of peace, rough though it was, and self-serving, and he did keep the Sunis and Shias apart. Our deposing him led directly to all the other Arab dictators who have since fallen being deposed. I venture to suggest that if we had not embarked on the second Iraq war Syria would not be in the state it is in now and ditto Afghanistan and ergo we would not have the worst migration problem since WW2.

Have a look at Tom Bower's latest book, it makes chilling reading. Blair, Goldsmith and Faulkener ()who I see has just lost badly representing Djibouti), all Oxford graduates BTW, between them conspired to circumvent UN and the requirement for a second resolution because they knew they would not get it. How did they know? Because they had bugged Kofi-Anan's office to discover it was, surprisingly perhaps, Chirac..

But, yes, Sykes-Picot was not our greatest diplomatic achievement it has to be admitted..