The nation-state mindset, the idea that war is an aberration, and the idea that ethnicity and religion don’t matter because “all people are basically alike and have similar needs” are dooming Westerners to engage in benevolent but futile, destructive, and self-destructive interventions into conflicts they cannot resolve. These are conflicts that cannot be settled by “smart people with good intentions” sitting down and negotiating a mutually tolerable compromise. One cannot stop an ethno-religious war in mid-course, resolve nothing, and expect everyone to just live side by side in peace when the war-stoppers leave.
(sur la guerre en Irak et ailleurs et les interventions «humanitaires» réelles, publicitaires ou en cheval de Troie cachant autre chose.)
http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2009/04/05/the-world-in-our-image/#more-622