The Middle East, untangled and unknotted

Slate has published a fascinating grid explaining all the relationships between different groups entangled in the Middle East. Countries that hate each other have a red cranky face, countries that like each other have a green smiley face, and the yellow confused faces mean the two countries have a complicated relationship. If you go to the link, each point on the grid is clickable, and reveals a short summary of the relationship. At last, we can understand everything…until the faces change next week.

Slate

Unfortunately, the only clarity that emerges is that everyone hates ISIS, and most of the groups hate Al Qaida. I also see that hate faces outnumber happy faces 43 to 17.

But I have a solution! Every country should follow the US and Israel’s lead, and bomb, topple, annihilate, or otherwise destroy every country with a hate face. Just pick your favorite country and look down either row or column, and have them go to war with every country that’s red on the grid. The yellow ‘it’s complicated’ faces do complicate this approach, unsurprisingly, but I’m pretty sure that after you blow up their neighbors, they’ll either go green or red. It’ll evolve towards greater simplicity, naturally.

The survivors after this apocalyptic orgy of destruction will be any country that has nothing but green or yellow faces in their column, which means a wave of happiness and peace will sweep across the region. Easy. All solved. Victory!

You can even examine the grid now and predict who the victor will be.