re: #30 Killgore Trout

Ah, but prior to WWI, the Ottoman Empire controlled nearly all of the Middle East, and so all the disputed borders were just provinces within a larger entity. The borders of the Ottoman Empire shifted over time, and the Ottomans themselves supplanted the Roman Empire, but the modern Middle East traces itself to the post WWI breakup of the Ottoman Empire with the establishment of various monarchies and protectorates.