Five Peace Agreements to Use as Guides for a Post-Islamic State Middle East by David Ignatius, Washington Post
French President François Hollande has announced that his country is at war with the Islamic State, and the United States is surely part of that conflict, too. What the fighters need urgently is a road map for the future, after the terrorist group is defeated.
Planning the shape of the postwar Middle East may seem like a fantasy right now, as the extremists are widening their fight. But it’s a crucial exercise for the broad coalition fighting the Islamic State, which includes Russia, Iran and most Sunni Arab countries, as well as the United States, France and most of the rest of Europe. Toppling the extremists will only add to the chaos in the Middle East unless there’s agreement about how to fill the vacuum in Syria and Iraq.
To guide this strategic planning, it’s useful to look at five dates that marked the end of other convulsive conflicts: 1648, 1815, 1919, 1945 and 1989…