The Map Comes To Life

The Map Comes To Life | Belmont Club:
"At intervals in history the map redraws itself.
This may be one of those times.
The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that Iraq and Syria are breaking up and the process is irreversible.
The Associated Press reports:
Iraq and Syria may have been permanently torn asunder by war and sectarian tensions, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said Thursday in a frank assessment that is at odds with Obama administration policy.
...Iraqis and Syrians now more often identify themselves by tribe or religious sect, rather than by their nationality, he said.
...Brennan and Stewart forgot to add Libya and Yemen to his list.
They have already disintegrated.
...Now  Evans-Pritchard wonders whether that other boundary drawn up by European diplomatic treaties — the European Union — is now entering a similar period of revision.
It would be a dramatic reversal of fortune for a continent which only one and a half decades ago was celebrating its forthcoming triumph.
Not only is the EU beset with an unresolvable currency crisis but with a flood of refugees that threatens its political union. 
It is facing territorial challenges from its south even while a new east-west division in Ukraine rises to its east..."