New Borders of ME and Pakistan

Ray · 12-19-2007, 01:27 AM

Quote:

Blood borders
How a better Middle East would look

By Ralph Peters

International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.

The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.

While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region's comprehensive failure isn't Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.

Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant "cheated" population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia, but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.

Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.

Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosporus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East's "organic" frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected.

As for those who refuse to "think the unthinkable," declaring that boundaries must not change and that's that, it pays to remember that boundaries have never stopped changing through the centuries. Borders have never been static, and many frontiers, from Congo through Kosovo to the Caucasus, are changing even now (as ambassadors and special representatives avert their eyes to study the shine on their wingtips).

Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.

Begin with the border issue most sensitive to American readers: For Israel to have any hope of living in reasonable peace with its neighbors, it will have to return to its pre-1967 borders — with essential local adjustments for legitimate security concerns. But the issue of the territories surrounding Jerusalem, a city stained with thousands of years of blood, may prove intractable beyond our lifetimes. Where all parties have turned their god into a real-estate tycoon, literal turf battles have a tenacity unrivaled by mere greed for oil wealth or ethnic squabbles. So let us set aside this single overstudied issue and turn to those that are studiously ignored.

The most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are between 27 million and 36 million Kurds living in contiguous regions in the Middle East (the figures are imprecise because no state has ever allowed an honest census). Greater than the population of present-day Iraq, even the lower figure makes the Kurds the world's largest ethnic group without a state of its own. Worse, Kurds have been oppressed by every government controlling the hills and mountains where they've lived since Xenophon's day.

The U.S. and its coalition partners missed a glorious chance to begin to correct this injustice after Baghdad's fall. A Frankenstein's monster of a state sewn together from ill-fitting parts, Iraq should have been divided into three smaller states immediately. We failed from cowardice and lack of vision, bullying Iraq's Kurds into supporting the new Iraqi government — which they do wistfully as a quid pro quo for our good will. But were a free plebiscite to be held, make no mistake: Nearly 100 percent of Iraq's Kurds would vote for independence.

As would the long-suffering Kurds of Turkey, who have endured decades of violent military oppression and a decades-long demotion to "mountain Turks" in an effort to eradicate their identity. While the Kurdish plight at Ankara's hands has eased somewhat over the past decade, the repression recently intensified again and the eastern fifth of Turkey should be viewed as occupied territory. As for the Kurds of Syria and Iran, they, too, would rush to join an independent Kurdistan if they could. The refusal by the world's legitimate democracies to champion Kurdish independence is a human-rights sin of omission far worse than the clumsy, minor sins of commission that routinely excite our media. And by the way: A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.

A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq's three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenecia reborn. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.

A root cause of the broad stagnation in the Muslim world is the Saudi royal family's treatment of Mecca and Medina as their fiefdom. With Islam's holiest shrines under the police-state control of one of the world's most bigoted and oppressive regimes — a regime that commands vast, unearned oil wealth — the Saudis have been able to project their Wahhabi vision of a disciplinarian, intolerant faith far beyond their borders. The rise of the Saudis to wealth and, consequently, influence has been the worst thing to happen to the Muslim world as a whole since the time of the Prophet, and the worst thing to happen to Arabs since the Ottoman (if not the Mongol) conquest.

While non-Muslims could not effect a change in the control of Islam's holy cities, imagine how much healthier the Muslim world might become were Mecca and Medina ruled by a rotating council representative of the world's major Muslim schools and movements in an Islamic Sacred State — a sort of Muslim super-Vatican — where the future of a great faith might be debated rather than merely decreed. True justice — which we might not like — would also give Saudi Arabia's coastal oil fields to the Shia Arabs who populate that subregion, while a southeastern quadrant would go to Yemen. Confined to a rump Saudi Homelands Independent Territory around Riyadh, the House of Saud would be capable of far less mischief toward Islam and the world.

Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today's Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.

What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren (the point of this exercise is not to draw maps as we would like them but as local populations would prefer them). Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining "natural" Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.

The city-states of the United Arab Emirates would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf (a state more likely to evolve as a counterbalance to, rather than an ally of, Persian Iran). Since all puritanical cultures are hypocritical, Dubai, of necessity, would be allowed to retain its playground status for rich debauchees. Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.

In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism — in some cases, both. Of course, if we could wave a magic wand and amend the borders under discussion, we would certainly prefer to do so selectively. Yet, studying the revised map, in contrast to the map illustrating today's boundaries, offers some sense of the great wrongs borders drawn by Frenchmen and Englishmen in the 20th century did to a region struggling to emerge from the humiliations and defeats of the 19th century.

Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time — and the inevitable attendant bloodshed — new and natural borders will emerge. Babylon has fallen more than once.

Meanwhile, our men and women in uniform will continue to fight for security from terrorism, for the prospect of democracy and for access to oil supplies in a region that is destined to fight itself. The current human divisions and forced unions between Ankara and Karachi, taken together with the region's self-inflicted woes, form as perfect a breeding ground for religious extremism, a culture of blame and the recruitment of terrorists as anyone could design. Where men and women look ruefully at their borders, they look enthusiastically for enemies.

From the world's oversupply of terrorists to its paucity of energy supplies, the current deformations of the Middle East promise a worsening, not an improving, situation. In a region where only the worst aspects of nationalism ever took hold and where the most debased aspects of religion threaten to dominate a disappointed faith, the U.S., its allies and, above all, our armed forces can look for crises without end. While Iraq may provide a counterexample of hope — if we do not quit its soil prematurely — the rest of this vast region offers worsening problems on almost every front.

If the borders of the greater Middle East cannot be amended to reflect the natural ties of blood and faith, we may take it as an article of faith that a portion of the bloodshed in the region will continue to be our own.

• • •

WHO WINS, WHO LOSES

Winners —

Afghanistan

Arab Shia State

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Free Baluchistan

Free Kurdistan

Iran

Islamic Sacred State

Jordan

Lebanon

Yemen

•

Losers —

Afghanistan

Iran

Iraq

Israel

Kuwait

Pakistan

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Syria

Turkey

United Arab Emirates

West Bank
ARMED FORCES JOURNAL - Blood borders - June 2006

The map is at:

ImageShack - Hosting :: middleeastafterha6.jpg

It is true that the borders drawn by the imperial powers were arbitrary and with little concern to the cultural, tribal, lingual and social affinities. In the bragain, the countries left behind are in constant turmoil and still attempting to find their identities.

But is Peters right or he is audacious and has himself been denied the realities that exist on ground!

S-2 · 12-19-2007, 02:08 AM

Brigadier,

Is any border so permanent as to forever be etched in stone? Peters is damned right that we should have ripped Iraq apart in May, 2003 and built three countries from it. That's where we are headed in any case. Iraq's gov't is congenitally incapable of achieving the goals and objectives upon which it's sovereignty can be assured.

His map is unrealistically whack. Totally. The premise is rock-solid, though. What is really in mankind's greatest interest is to render this region geologically irrelevant. It'll happen. The technology is here to do so. The profit-motive lags.

Agnostic Muslim · 12-19-2007, 03:05 AM

The problems I see with this in terms of the suggestions for Pakistani territory:

In my opinion, from my experiences and interactions with Pakistani Pashtun, the Pakistani Pashtun, save for those in the Tribal Belt, have no great affinity for the Afghan due to the myriad problems (crime, economic impact etc) the Afghan refugee camps have caused in the NWFP over decades.

The Tribal belt, on both sides of the border, is just as unlikely to acquiesce to a central Afghan Government as it is to a Pakistani one. In fact the reunification will provide them with even greater ease of movement than they have now, and a much weaker central government and army will fail to keep even the few checks on them that the Pakistan Army has been able to. The parts of the Tribal belt that are the most moderate (eg. Swat, where the locals have helped the PA defeat the Taliban in a matter of weeks), are the ones that interact with the rest of Pakistan and have been developed over the years and have had economic investment. A reunification takes away even that little hope for the remaining territory, given Afghanistan's current to long term socio-economic prospects.

With respect to Baluchistan - the Baluch may already be a minority in that province due to the large Pashtun community that has historically been present, and has expanded with both refugees from Afghanistan as well as illegal Afghan immigrants. Not quite the harmonious and simple "blood division" that Peters envisions. This "reunification" will probably result in a civil war between the Pashtun and the Baluch, and lead to more new "blood border" divisions.

And Peters conveniently ignores the fact that when the Tribal Pashtun and Baluch Sardars are not fighting the US, Pakistan or Iran - they are fighting each other in Tribal and sectarian wars - so will this "blood bordering" continue till we have tiny Tribal States?

The key here is not more segregation and division that will steep the region in violence and bloodshed for centuries to come, with every generations "benevolent Super Power" redrawing maps, but in increasing economic opportunity and pushing for more interactions with other cultures and progressive laws. That however takes time, while the "turn everything into a parking lot" theory does not....

S-2 · 12-19-2007, 04:33 AM

It's Peters pipe-dream. Nothing but.

You might, but shouldn't argue with the classic failure of a Pakistani state. It's a fact. Funny that despite your comment about maps re-drawn by the latest "benevolent Super-power" you'd still willingly accept the previous hegemon's effort.

Sorta attached to Pakistan, are you?

S-2 · 12-19-2007, 05:37 AM

Please tell me that you're not a Wolverine. I've just read your intro. I see that I was accurate.

In any case, welcome. I've read your stuff over on PDF and recognize the avatar. I really do look forward to your contributions.

Ray · 12-19-2007, 06:30 AM

S2

One of the issues that anyone wanting to create a country out of another should remember is that it has access to the Ocean.

That is why I don't bet my bottom dollar on Kurdistan!

Cactus · 12-19-2007, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray

It is true that the borders drawn by the imperial powers were arbitrary and with little concern to the cultural, tribal, lingual and social affinities. In the bragain, the countries left behind are in constant turmoil and still attempting to find their identities.

But is Peters right or he is audacious and has himself been denied the realities that exist on ground!

The imperial/colonial powers not only left back ill-considered boundaries, but also left back guardians and propogators of those same divisions, so one must also take into account those vested-interests while proposing a more "considered" distribution. The trick of course is in gauging the exact importance of the vested-interests and the rebellious-interests, and treating them with appropriate consideration.

Agnostic Muslim · 12-19-2007, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S-2

It's Peters pipe-dream. Nothing but.

You might, but shouldn't argue with the classic failure of a Pakistani state. It's a fact. Funny that despite your comment about maps re-drawn by the latest "benevolent Super-power" you'd still willingly accept the previous hegemon's effort.

Please tell me that you're not a Wolverine. I've just read your intro. I see that I was accurate.

In any case, welcome. I've read your stuff over on PDF and recognize the avatar. I really do look forward to your contributions.

Thanks

Not a wolverine - was a spartan for a while - a grizzly for now

At this point, I would argue against the "classic failure" of the Pakistani State - though in certain aspects, developing a viable democratic system for example, we have not been successful as of yet. But I see no similarities between Pakistan and Iraq/Afghanistan, either in the lack of nationalism that is evident in those nations, or the levels of inter-ethnic turmoil.

Whats done is done - we cannot go back to redrawing maps to recreate the Greek and Persian empires, nor returning US lands to the Mexicans, or to the British. My argument is against continuing that policy of redrawing borders (and to revert to old borders would obviously be a "redrawing"), unless no other option exists (eg. the Balkans).

Pakistani nationalism is vibrant within the majority of Pakistan, and the colonial drawn borders have taken root and grown strong, as have those of India. Lack of development and the drug and weapons laden basketcase we have on our West has caused instability and some problems, but nothing we can't handle - barring the "benevolent superpowers" putting their fingers in the pie.

Out of curiosity, why is there such a lack of opinion and discussion in the West on the idea of dividing Afghanistan up? A nation that has suffered through years of endless tribal, ethnic and sectarian turmoil and bloodshed. If ever there was an example of a nation whose communities hated each other, Afghanistan is one. Why not carve it up and merge the communities with the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Iran and Pakistan. Makes more sense then breaking up far more stable countries, whose people actually have a sense of nationalism and unity, and economies that do not have drugs contributing to 54 percent of GDP.

bolo121 · 12-19-2007, 10:52 AM

Hi first time out

saw that map a while back while browsing reddit
its just a crazy pipe dream. The countries in the middle east are very proud & warlike. The imperial powers of old already meddled there a lot and more meddling would just cause the place to explode.
Pakistan just needs to hang on and democracy can grow there again soon.

Cactus · 12-19-2007, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agnostic Muslim

The problems I see with this in terms of the suggestions for Pakistani territory...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agnostic Muslim

Pakistani nationalism is vibrant within the majority of Pakistan...

You will notice that the majority of Pakistan, and quite likely the vast majority of the nationalist sentiment, resides in the suggested Pakistani territory.

Now I don't necessarily agree with the suggested map either - but I am just making a conjecture on the possible writer/cartographer's reasoning.

Agnostic Muslim · 12-19-2007, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cactus

You will notice that the majority of Pakistan, and quite likely the vast majority of the nationalist sentiment, resides in the suggested Pakistani territory.

Now I don't necessarily agree with the suggested map either - but I am just making a conjecture on the possible writer/cartographer's reasoning.

My reference to the "majority of Pakistanis" was from both geographic and population POV. Barring the Tribal Areas, who really have allegiance to no one, the Pakistani Pashtun are quite nationalistic, perhaps more so than the Sindhis. The Pashtun also take up large parts of Baluchistan, and as I mentioned before, have probably reduced the ethnic Baluch to a minority, or will soon. That takes up a much larger chunk of the territory of Pakistan than the writer allows.

The writers analysis and segregation of the territories and communities is an extremely crude and simplistic one.

Cactus · 12-19-2007, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agnostic Muslim

Out of curiosity, why is there such a lack of opinion and discussion in the West on the idea of dividing Afghanistan up? A nation that has suffered through years of endless tribal, ethnic and sectarian turmoil and bloodshed. If ever there was an example of a nation whose communities hated each other, Afghanistan is one. Why not carve it up and merge the communities with the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Iran and Pakistan. Makes more sense then breaking up far more stable countries, whose people actually have a sense of nationalism and unity, and economies that do not have drugs contributing to 54 percent of GDP.

1. The Ghost of Ahmed Shah Abdali (Durrani).

2. How much of the "endless tribal, ethnic and sectarian turmoil and bloodshed" was sustained by Uzbegs, Tajiks, Iranians and Pakistanis to achieve that very end? Why should they now be rewarded in their defeat with the very thing they coveted?

The whole argument sounds suspiciously like marrying off the rape-victim to the rapists when the rapists are too strong to be brought to heel, Mullah Omar's Pacification of Afghanistan-style. Sure it works for today, but it only breeds more trouble for tomorrow in case you have not noticed.

Agnostic Muslim · 12-19-2007, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cactus

1. The Ghost of Ahmed Shah Abdali (Durrani).

2. How much of the "endless tribal, ethnic and sectarian turmoil and bloodshed" was sustained by Uzbegs, Tajiks, Iranians and Pakistanis to achieve that very end? Why should they now be rewarded in their defeat with the very thing they coveted?

The whole argument sounds suspiciously like marrying off the rape-victim to the rapists when the rapists are too strong to be brought to heel, Mullah Omar's Pacification of Afghanistan-style. Sure it works for today, but it only breeds more trouble for tomorrow in case you have not noticed.

I have already stated that I do not support redrawing borders - the question was an academic one, and legitimate, since "breeding trouble for tomorrow" hasn't deterred Western analysts from contemplating the breakup of far more stable states in region. This isn't my baby.

Cactus · 12-19-2007, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agnostic Muslim

This isn't my baby.

Just a by-blow, huh?

Agnostic Muslim · 12-19-2007, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cactus

Just a by-blow, huh?

This drivel of Ralph Peters couldn't be anything else..

12-19-2007, 02:08 AM	#2 (permalink)
S-2 *Military Professional* Join Date: 09-11-06 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 2,105 Country:	Ray Reply Brigadier, Is any border so permanent as to forever be etched in stone? Peters is damned right that we should have ripped Iraq apart in May, 2003 and built three countries from it. That's where we are headed in any case. Iraq's gov't is congenitally incapable of achieving the goals and objectives upon which it's sovereignty can be assured. His map is unrealistically whack. Totally. The premise is rock-solid, though. What is really in mankind's greatest interest is to render this region geologically irrelevant. It'll happen. The technology is here to do so. The profit-motive lags. __________________ "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

12-19-2007, 03:05 AM	#3 (permalink)
Agnostic Muslim Contributor Join Date: 12-12-07 Location: Auburn Hills Posts: 461 Country:	The problems I see with this in terms of the suggestions for Pakistani territory: In my opinion, from my experiences and interactions with Pakistani Pashtun, the Pakistani Pashtun, save for those in the Tribal Belt, have no great affinity for the Afghan due to the myriad problems (crime, economic impact etc) the Afghan refugee camps have caused in the NWFP over decades. The Tribal belt, on both sides of the border, is just as unlikely to acquiesce to a central Afghan Government as it is to a Pakistani one. In fact the reunification will provide them with even greater ease of movement than they have now, and a much weaker central government and army will fail to keep even the few checks on them that the Pakistan Army has been able to. The parts of the Tribal belt that are the most moderate (eg. Swat, where the locals have helped the PA defeat the Taliban in a matter of weeks), are the ones that interact with the rest of Pakistan and have been developed over the years and have had economic investment. A reunification takes away even that little hope for the remaining territory, given Afghanistan's current to long term socio-economic prospects. With respect to Baluchistan - the Baluch may already be a minority in that province due to the large Pashtun community that has historically been present, and has expanded with both refugees from Afghanistan as well as illegal Afghan immigrants. Not quite the harmonious and simple "blood division" that Peters envisions. This "reunification" will probably result in a civil war between the Pashtun and the Baluch, and lead to more new "blood border" divisions. And Peters conveniently ignores the fact that when the Tribal Pashtun and Baluch Sardars are not fighting the US, Pakistan or Iran - they are fighting each other in Tribal and sectarian wars - so will this "blood bordering" continue till we have tiny Tribal States? The key here is not more segregation and division that will steep the region in violence and bloodshed for centuries to come, with every generations "benevolent Super Power" redrawing maps, but in increasing economic opportunity and pushing for more interactions with other cultures and progressive laws. That however takes time, while the "turn everything into a parking lot" theory does not.... __________________ Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission - Jinnah Last edited by Agnostic Muslim : 12-19-2007 at 03:11 AM.

12-19-2007, 04:33 AM	#4 (permalink)
S-2 *Military Professional* Join Date: 09-11-06 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 2,105 Country:	Agnostic Muslim Reply It's Peters pipe-dream. Nothing but. You might, but shouldn't argue with the classic failure of a Pakistani state. It's a fact. Funny that despite your comment about maps re-drawn by the latest "benevolent Super-power" you'd still willingly accept the previous hegemon's effort. Sorta attached to Pakistan, are you?

12-19-2007, 05:37 AM	#5 (permalink)
S-2 *Military Professional* Join Date: 09-11-06 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 2,105 Country:	Agnostic Muslim Reply Please tell me that you're not a Wolverine. I've just read your intro. I see that I was accurate. In any case, welcome. I've read your stuff over on PDF and recognize the avatar. I really do look forward to your contributions.

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12-19-2007, 06:30 AM	#6 (permalink)
Ray Postmaster General *Military Professional* Join Date: 08-20-03 Posts: 26,119 Country:	S2 One of the issues that anyone wanting to create a country out of another should remember is that it has access to the Ocean. That is why I don't bet my bottom dollar on Kurdistan!

12-19-2007, 10:52 AM	#9 (permalink)
bolo121 *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 12-19-07 Location: india Posts: 753 Country:	Hi first time out saw that map a while back while browsing reddit its just a crazy pipe dream. The countries in the middle east are very proud & warlike. The imperial powers of old already meddled there a lot and more meddling would just cause the place to explode. Pakistan just needs to hang on and democracy can grow there again soon.

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