The road behind

Jim Reed puts together a concise history of the Middle East, featuring reminders like this:

It was the British Empire that set the Muslim/Arab world on its course toward authoritarian, centralized rule. Powerful governments, under kings, emirs or tribal chieftains, were thought by the British to be easier to control than popular movements that might have given rise to some form of democracy.

The very idea of democracy in the Arab world was anathema to the British and, later, the Americans; any popular movement was seen as a potential threat to Western hegemony. This held especially true after the discovery of oil in the region.

The British government and its Colonial Office supported, we might even say invented, these centralized governments – Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States – and often maintained them in power through a combination of military support and financial subsidy.

Sadly, the policy has changed only to the extent of the U.S. and Britain trying to claim democratization while controlling governments in new ways. Needless to say, this isn't going to give the locals any reason to trust the new imperialists.