Chris Roth, Aeon Magazine
In the Middle East, however, the game is changing. The institutional aversion to new nation-states might be a casualty of the devastating civil wars in Libya, Iraq, Yemen and, worst of all, Syria. Recall what made the anomaly of South Sudan possible in 2011: Sudans dictator Omar al-Bashir, convicted in absentia for crimes against humanity, was harbouring terrorists and massacring citizens. Unusually, the whole international community was content to see this one state dismembered and robbed of its southern oilfields.
