In his final State of the Union address, President Barack Obama spent most of his time discussing his time in office and what the future holds for the United States.
"The Middle East is going through a transformation that will play out for a generation, rooted in conflicts that date back millennia," Obama said during the foreign policy section of his speech.
That line...didn't go over very well on Twitter.
Millennia old conflicts line an embarrassment #SOTU
Like, at all.
Conflicts that date back millennia? Islam itself is not thousands of years old so what do you mean? #potus #SOTU
No, millennia-old conflicts are deployed on behalf of modern political disputes.
Obama didn't do his history homework saying that conflicts in the Middle East date back to millennia. Utter nonsense.
About time someone called out Nebuchadnezzar for starting these conflicts, lo, so many millennia ago.
Uh, says who? "...rooted in conflicts that date back millennia." #HistoryFactCheckPlease? #SCOTUS
Dear whoever @WhiteHouse thinks wars happen because groups have hated each other forever, pls read @monkeycageblog: https://t.co/RzQDZ87LBE
Middle East crises "rooted in conflicts that date back a millennia" -- what is this, Balkan Ghosts 2.0?
First half: true. Second half: cynical, self serving and wrong. US should not echo such essentialist errors. https://t.co/hN3CLdkcxd
That millennia-old conflicts line has united both left and right on my Twitter feed in opposition like nothing else I've ever seen.
Obama is as ignorant of Mideast history as was George W Bush. His talk of millenia-old conflicts is the smoking gun.
Weakest moment of the speech is the claim that the Middle East is embroiled in conflicts that date back millennia. No. #SOTU
Still sort of in awe that Obama used the "millennia"-old conflicts line to justify his policies. @Faysalitani said it best: "obscene."
Kinda weird to say the Middle East violence is "rooted in conflicts that date back millennia." 100 years, ok.
"The Middle East is going through a transformation rooted in conflicts that date back millennia." Orientalism 101 at #SOTU #yikes
When he uses the "rooted in conflicts that date back millennia" line.
TL;DR: When it comes to most conflicts, like, say, Saudi Arabia and Iran, it's about the geopolitics, not the millennia-old anything.
