Robert Lyman was an officer in the British Army for 20 years. Educated at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, he served in Bosnia and Northern Ireland. He is an acclaimed expert on the history of the Middle East and is the author of First Victory, a book about Britain's forgotten struggle in the Middle East in 1941.
This is what he has to say...
Even moderately informed opinion in every generation has acknowledged the ancient truth that, if left to its own devices, history will repeat itself. This is especially true if that history is concerned with the short-term pragmatism of power politics. Nowhere else on the planet in modern times is this truth more unfortunately manifest than in the Middle East. In large part the West continues to deal with the region through the lens of its own strategic ambition....
