Jumblatt: 'All colonial rule is better than this ...'

"...BEIRUT: Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt Monday questioned if the region was truly better off since the end of European rule in the Middle East.
"What if the French or the British mandates, or even the rule of the Ottoman Empire had continued? Was it not better than the sectarian strife that we see worsening day by day, the latest of which is in Iraq?...Didn’t that era that we cursed back then provide the institutions that performed at the bare minimum, some form of constitution and a general system? ...What if the mandate – which established departments, public institutions and made basic laws for the many administrative and institutional structures – had continued?” Jumblatt went on to say...."