You make some good points, but I think you're forgetting the most important fact. Much of the conflict in the Middle East is due to the country border lines that were designated indiscriminately after WW1 by western powers. Many of these countries should not exist in the same form as they do today, and almost no ethnicity was affected more perversely than the Kurds. When you take tribal territories that have been warring for a thousand years and try to place them in confined borders and establish a universal government, problems arise to say the least.