Since Israel now has a kosher McDonald’s, since Saudi Arabia’s McDonald’s closes five times a day for Muslim prayer, since Egypt has 18 McDonald’s and Jordan is getting its first, the chances of a war between them are minimal. But watch out for that Syrian front. There are no Big Macs served in Damascus. India-Pakistan? I’m still worried. India, where 40 percent of the population is vegetarian, just opened the first beefless McDonald’s (vegetable nuggets!), but Pakistan is still a Mac-free zone.

Obviously, I say all this tongue in cheek. But there was enough of a correlation for me to ask James Cantalupo, president of McDonald’s International and its de facto Secretary of State, what might be behind this Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention — which stipulates that when a country reaches a certain level of economic development, when it has a middle class big enough to support a McDonald’s, it becomes a McDonald’s country, and people in McDonald’s countries don’t like to fight wars; they like to wait in line for burgers. Or as Mr. Cantalupo puts it: ”We focus our development on the more well-developed economies — those that are growing and those that are large — and the risks involved in being adventuresome $(for those growing economies$) are probably getting too great.”

Well, there is now disturbing news for residents of Iceland – McDonald’s Iceland is to shut up shop. Could the Cod Wars reignite due to this development?

H/T