With Syria, Libya, and Yemen split by intractable civil wars, with Lebanon subservient to Hezbollah, with the Kurds about to have a plebiscite on formalizing their de facto independence from Baghdad, the writer of this article must have put blinders on before writing this article about the resiliency of nation states in MENA. Somehow she avoided talking about Iranian ambitions, the Shia-Sunni split, the problems of Kurds within Turkey, and the never ending war in Afghanistan. Her vision of strong and coherent nation states is a mirage.