As part of its programme of “topical talks” Rotarians were treated to a thought provoking and absorbing presentation by linguist and historian Dr Richard Long entitled “The Middle East To-day”. The speaker sketched the background to the current situation in the region, linking it to a number of historic and modern causes, among them radicalisation, the split in Islam between Sunnis and Shi’is, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the failure of the Arab Spring. He discussed the rise and decline of I.S., the Syrian civil war, the immigration phenomenon and the situation of peripheral countries such as Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine. Quoting Lord Curzon’s warning that the Middle East is a subject in which students never obtain their degree, he forecast that I.S. would not last, that an independent Kurdistan would be born, that Syria would emerge divided into three and Iraq into at least two and that the Iraq-Syria border would be re-established.

In spite of the seriousness of his subject, Richard who lives near Ledbury, was able to lighten the mood with hilarious anecdotes about his time as a young diplomat in the Foreign Office and his postings to Arab countries, Turkey and Iran. In thanking him for his erudite and well–informed presentation, Rotarian Basil Butterworth remarked how useful it was to gain a greater understanding of how present wars in the Middle East had arisen and how it was that there never seemed to be an end to them.