a well respected person on Middle East affairs, Abdel-Moneim Said, and it is titled "The Syrian Tragedy" in which he makes some very good points about the failure of modern Arab groups in different regions to come together in common purpose and build sustainable nation states. There is more of course and much of it covers points I've made here on DU before but he does leave out a very real reason that these groups do not "come together" in a common purpose.
The foreign policy of the US and the West is something that has always had two components. The publicly stated policy and the clandestine policy. Many times they involve being at cross purposes to put it politely. For well over 100 years the Western powers, most big powers anywhere actually, have looked at regions that have multiple groups with significant differences from each other and while publicly calling for unity and peace they privately selectively choose, arm and support one or more of the factions. In essence hedging their bets so to speak in order to have a claim to being owed "influence" by whoever is the "victor" for control of the region. But these struggles can and sometimes do go on for decades and along the way groups splinter and alliances morph etc. in a changing stew that can breed endless factionalism.
Sometimes the big countries even use this stirring of factionalism and constant unrest to their own ends. In the case of the OPEC countries the US loves countries being strong and unified when they are leaning solidly in the camp of working with the US on production matters. But when a country shows they aren't going to be a "take instructions" sort of operation then the US doesn't mind things being unstable because an unstable situation is a weak one as far as being able to firmly go "against the flow". No pun intended. Thought of another way it is similar to what the British did in the Middle East during WW 1 by basically promising Arabs the same land, by way of the McMahon-Hussein documents, they also nearly immediately then promised the Jewish leaders by way of the Balfour mess. The British didn't know how things might go but they wanted support against the Ottoman Empire and they weren't bashful about talking out of both sides of their mouth to get it. They just didn't want things to be too public and that's why they fought against admitting to the McMahon-Hussein documents for so long.
So to make the long story short, it is correct to talk about the failure of groups to coalesce but to not point out big nations plying those different groups simultaneously with weapons and support fails to acknowledge that big nations keep that stew stirred for their purposes which usually has nothing to do with the publicly stated policy of caring about "the people" and their "freedom" or "coming together".
https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/50/1204/536749/AlAhram-Weekly/Opinion/The-Syrian-tragedy.aspx
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