U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack: ‘There Is No Middle East, There Is Tribes and Villages’

TRANSCRIPT:

BARRACK: "The Middle East? There is no Middle East. You know that. There’s tribes, there’s villages. The nation state was created by the British and the French in the 1916. The Sykes–Picot said, 'Okay, we’re going to take what was the Ottoman Empire and we’re going to draw straight lines around it, and we'll call these nation states. But the Middle East doesn’t work that way. It starts with an individual, then family, then village, then tribe, then community, then religion. Lastly, it’s what this nation is. So when I say it’s an illusion, to think that somehow we’re gonna get 27 different nations that have a 110 different ethnic groups to align with political concepts, what will they align with? 'Make my life and my children’s life better.'"