Murphy's Law: Alexander The Greatest Friend Of Arabs

Archives

February 3, 2009: Greece has offered to erect a statue of Alexander the Great, outside Mosul, to celebrate the battle of Gaugamela. It was there, 2,340 years ago, that the Greek educated Macedonian conqueror defeated a Persian (Iranian) army, and destroyed the Persian empire (which at that time stretched from modern Turkey to modern Pakistan.) The Iraqis are enthusiastic about the idea, even though the defeated Persian army contained a lot of Arab troops. For the Iraqis, the big thing is that the battle represented a major defeat for Iran. Even though most Iraqis share the Shia form of Islam with Iran, the Iranians are not Arabs, but an Indo-European people related to the Indians and Europeans. Iran/Persia has long menaced, invaded and generally beat on the Arabs, and are now threatening the Arab world again. So anything that celebrates  anyone smashing Iranian power, is something to be encouraged.

Eight years after Gaugamela, Alexander was dead, and what is now Iraq became part of a kingdom ruled by one of Alexander's generals. But the Greeks soon left, and the Iranians didn't.

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contribute. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   contribute   Close