Like most of modern history: America's fault most recently, but Europe's fault originally.
Contrary to Europe where different ethnic groups are well separated in different countries, in the middle-east, like in Irak, you can find arabs, kurds, turks living in the same villages, cities that makes a clean separation almost impossible. They lost the skill to live together in peace, my opinion is that it won't be resolved before civil wars and huge population displacements and even greater hatred between those ethnic groups.
And while France ran Algeria and Lebanon, they were thriving, pleasant, peaceful, beautiful places. Beirut was once one of the loveliest cities in the world.
There are worst things than colonialism; to a first approximation, every single post-colonial country is worse off than it was when it was a colony (I wouldn't count the U.S. as post-colonial because in a very real sense it's a successful colony).
And let me be clear, I didn't say that it is better now, but your theory that it was better when colonial powers were in charge is false.
"every single post-colonial country is worse off than it was when it was a colony (I wouldn't count the U.S. as post-colonial because in a very real sense it's a successful colony)."
...that is the definition of colonization, it is only successful if you overcome the local population. Again it is successful at the detriment of the local population (or a part of it).
I'm not excusing the action of US and all the others, but I just want to point out that they didn't start anything and that before the even existed their were already states in that area that were fighting each other over many of the same borders areas.
America and Europe are stabilizing and largely benevolent forces in the world, and they were even this when they were colonialist.
The Middle East is a mess because of the nature and history of the types of cultures there.
The most prosperous nations in the region are those that play reasonably in the context of international balance as defined by Western powers.
Namely Saudi, Qatar, UAE, and now Jordan, mostly Egypt etc..
Iraq would be mostly ok if Saddam did not invade Kuwait.
Syria would be mostly ok if they didn't side with the Soviets, and support Iranian terrorism via Hezbollah.
Iran would be mostly ok if they stopped declaring that 'American must be destroyed' and overtly exporting their Islamic Theocratic Revolution outside their borders.
The 'internal issues' of Saudi such as human rights etc. - is making slow but steady progress as evidenced by their evolution over the last 50 years. Patience would get us there.
Without America or Europe, Middle Eastern powers would have wiped each other out so long as they had access to weapons, or I should say rather, there would be no stability.
Without USA+Europe, I believe the Arab world would look like Libya does now internally.
This is not to fail to recognize that the US+Europe have made tons of mistakes.
This is irony, right? Without Europe and USA, Libya wouldn't look like it does now, and this isn't ancient history: it happened five years ago!
It astounds me how much people forget in such a short time. We have a sort of "Forget Disastrous Military Interventions" Complex.
I have not 'forgotten' anything. I watched every moment of the Libya episode.
I suggest that it is your posture which is 'forgetting'.
A) Libya and Gaddafis totalitarianism, his child rape, corruption, cronyism - and admitted direct involvement in terrorism (Lockerbie bombing) - and then his attempts to mass murder dissenter ARE NOT THE FAULT OF THE WEST.
'The West' was left with very little choice but to at least stop the advancing genocidal army.
By not participating, 'The West' is de-facto 'picking a side'. So there's no way out of it. 'Power' does not work in a vacum, we can't just 'stay out of it' for the most part.
The failure of Libya is 99.9% the fault of Gaddafi, and the various Libyan factions. There's no reason that they can't come to terms and make civilization like everyone else on planet earth.
Just because 'The West' can't magically waive it's wand and create democracy, does not mean that it's 'The Wests' fault that democracy does not exist there.
Moreover - if 'The West' did not provide a stabilizing framework for the last 100 years - Libya would be in the state that it is now - and possibly much worse.
What "astounds me" is how blithely hypocritical are in blaming 'The West' for the mass murdering, totalitarian actions of others.
Have a quick visit to Libya and see for yourself. Myself - I was in Tunisia a few years ago and tried to sneak across the border. Fortunately, I failed :)
You're the only one suggesting that the West should "create democracy" anywhere. Libya ain't Lichtenstein. Besides everyone knows that the democracy goalpost gets moved whenever it's convenient, like it did for Mosaddegh. Qaddafi was a violent corrupt warlord, but he wasn't the first in Africa, nor even the only, nor certainly the worst. More Libyans died in Reagan's post-Lockerbie bombing back in the 1980s than passengers died in the bombing itself, and Qaddafi had been fairly tolerable for about a decade before the French philosopher you follow got a hard-on for him.
One can't bomb the fuck out of a place, assassinate its every leader, supply arms to the uneducated violent rabble that show up to replace them [1], and then reasonably blame the mess on the assassinated leaders. Logic doesn't work like that. We could pick out any number of nations in Europe, Asia, or the Americas that would look like Libya does today, five years after violently removing all civil authority and encouraging violent terrorists to move in. That's even considering the "stabilizing framework for the last 100 years". What a joke; next you'll credit Rome's defeat of Carthage.
If you'd like to redpill, consider the fact that USA military-industrial complex makes more money when USA is bogged down in multiple never-ending wars. Consider also the fact that USA news media is basically controlled by the MIC, and has been since the sinking of the Maine. Stop believing the bullshit, and the real world will stop upsetting you so much.
[0] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/obamas-libya-d...
[1] http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/libya-and-the-myth-of-hu...