[After the conquest of Baghdad, it] was evident that [the conquering power] either was not aware of, or had given no thought to, the population mix of the Mesopotamian provinces. The antipathy between the minority of Moslems who were Sunnis and the majority who were Shi'ites, the rivalries of tribes and clans, [and] the historic and geographic divisions of the provinces...made it difficult to achieve a single unified government that was at the same time representative, effective, and widely supported.
The quote is from David Fromkin's wonderful (but seriously dense) 1989 book A Peace to End All Peace, and the circumstances described concern the period after March 1917 when the British took Baghdad from the Ottoman Empire.
Do I even need to quote Santayana here?
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