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Mapping new wars: A rebuttal to 'Blood
borders'
28.1.2007
By Joseph E. Fallon
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January 28, 2007
The plan of the Bush administration to install
democratic, secular, pro-American regimes in the
Middle East is fast unraveling. It is a classic
example of "blowback," where your actions ensure the
opposite of what you intended. There is the
insurgency in Iraq and the return of the Taliban in
Afghanistan. In democratic elections, Islamic
fundamentalist parties increased their
representation in the legislatures of Egypt, Kuwait,
Lebanon, and Pakistan, while Palestinians and Turks
voted for such parties to lead their governments.
Iranians rejected a moderate, electing hardliner
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as their president. There is
rising anti-Americanism throughout the Islamic world
even in such secular states as Indonesia, Tunisia
and Turkey. The former Soviet republics of Central
Asia, whose independence from Moscow the U.S.
encouraged because of their strategic location and
petroleum reserves, are suspicious of Washington and
have turned to Russia for support. And Israel,
despite U.S. military and diplomatic assistance,
failed to defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In reacting to these foreign policy failures, and
growing domestic opposition, a frustrated Bush
administration is lashing out. Foreign critics are
accused of being anti-American while domestic
critics are denounced as appeasers of terrorists.
The need to continue the war in Iraq is presented in
near apocalyptic terms and threats are made to bomb
Iran and Syria. The war itself is being continuously
renamed in hopes a more menacing title will win back
public support. So the war on terrorism became World
War III, World War IV, and now a world war against
Islamo-facism.
That such hyperbole may shape future U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East becomes an alarming
possibility with the publication of the article
"Blood Borders" by Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army
lieutenant colonel, in the June 2006 issue of Armed
Forces Journal. AFJ is an influential publication,
which describes itself as "the leading joint service
monthly magazine for officers and leaders in the
United States military community Â… providing
essential review and analysis on key defense issues
for over 140 years." This article, therefore, is a
trial balloon offering a "moral" argument —
redressing unjust borders — for expanding the Iraq
War across the entire Middle East.
Peters asserts that while many problems contribute
to the "comprehensive failure" that is the Middle
East, one of the most important is not addressed:
unjust borders. He insists "a more peaceful Middle
East" depends on redrawing existing political
borders so they reflect the national boundaries of
major ethnic groups and provides a map of what those
new borders should look like. In suggesting that
redrawing the map of the Middle East should be a
priority of U.S. foreign policy, Peters is
advocating the failed policy of Woodrow Wilson that
lasting peace requires U.S. military intervention on
behalf of what Washington perceives to be other
peoples' national aspirations.
The article is deeply flawed. Peters rightly
criticizes current political borders in the Middle
East as "arbitrary and distorted. Â… Drawn by
self-interested Europeans." But his proposed new
borders are equally as arbitrary and distorted,
drawn solely to advance U.S. interests, which he
defined in a 1997 article in Parameters, "Constant
Conflict," as "to keep the world safe for our
economy and open to our cultural assault. To those
ends, we will do a fair amount of killing."
Since his proposal calls for dismemberment of seven
Muslim countries and creation of a small "Islamic
Sacred State" of Mecca and Medina, "a sort of Muslim
super-Vatican," deprived of oil revenues and
impoverished, it confirms the suspicions of Muslims
that the U.S. is at war with Islam and is intent on
carving up Muslim lands. If adopted as policy, it
will enrage 1½ billion Muslims, increase the
influence of fundamentalism and swell the ranks of
terrorists.
Furthermore, his proposal to amend existing borders
"to reflect the natural ties of blood and faith" is
plagued by inconsistency, inaccuracy and
misunderstanding. For instance, Saudi Arabia, a
country founded by Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud through
military conquest, is described as an "unnatural
state," but not Jordan, whose political existence
was the creation of the British government.
After condemning existing borders as "colossal,
man-made deformities that will not stop generating
hatred and violence until they are corrected," the
article states, "Kuwait would remain within its
current borders, as would Oman." This is all the
more incongruous since his proposed Arab Shia state
includes territories from Iran, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates, to which Arab Shias
traditionally have not laid political claims, and
excludes the one territory to which they have:
Kuwait.
Asserting borders should reflect "the natural ties
of blood and faith," the author proposes one state
that would encompass Arab Shias, but then advocates
dividing Arab Sunnis among at least eight separate
states.
The article stresses the need for political borders
to be redrawn to "reflect ethnic affinities and
religious communalism," then insists "one haunting
wrong can never be addressed with a reward of
territory: the genocide perpetrated against the
Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire." Why not?
What of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh? It is
pertinent to the subject. Possession of
Nagorno-Karabakh has provoked one war between
Armenia and Azerbaijan and may soon ignite another.
Yet, the issue of Armenia's borders, unlike those of
Azerbaijan, is excluded from his analysis.
Peters advocates independence for Pakistan's
province of Baluchistan, which has a population of 7
million, but not for the adjoining Pakistani
provinces of Sindh, which has a population of 35
million, or Punjab, which has a population of 86
million. By not calling for the latter ethnic
groups' independence as well, he is violating his
proposal that new borders be drawn reflecting
"ethnic affinities and religious communalism."
He calls for unification of Azeri inhabited lands in
Iran with the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan,
but not for the unification of Tajik inhabited lands
in Afghanistan with the former Soviet republic of
Tajikistan.
While advocating political unification and
independence for Azeri, who number between 23
million and 30 million, the author does not call for
the political unification and independence of
Pushtuns, who number 40 million. Instead, he
proposes that the 28 million Pushtuns in Pakistan's
North West Frontier Province unite with Afghanistan,
where Pushtuns number 12 million but are not the
majority. This contradicts his argument that borders
should "reflect ethnic affinities" since nearly half
the territory of this greater Afghanistan would be
inhabited by non-Pushtuns.
Apply consistently his proposal for the political
unification of Pushtuns inside a greater
Afghanistan, and it undermines his call for a united
Azerbaijan. The Azeri can achieve similar political
unification inside a greater Iran rather than in a
separate country. They already hold positions of
authority in Iran. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, is himself an Azeri.
In suggesting the Arab Sunni areas of Iraq join
Syria, Peters seems unaware that the largest and
most influential tribe among them is the Shammar,
one of the largest tribes in the region, a tribe
connected to Saudi Arabia by blood and marriage. The
heartland of the Shammar is in Saudi Arabia where it
also resides and where it has acquired great wealth.
The tribe is linked to the Saudi Royal House through
the mother of King Abdullah who was of the Shammar.
If the Arab Sunnis of Iraq united with another
country it would be Saudi Arabia, not Syria.
Peters writes that "the Kurds [are] the world's
largest ethnic group without a state of its own." In
fact, in neighboring Pakistan and India, alone,
there are ethnic groups with populations as large as
or larger than the Kurds that lack independent
statehood -- Marathi, Punjabi, Pushtuns, Sindhi,
Tamils and Telugus, for example.
The author maintains an independent Kurdistan will
insure greater stability in the region. But for the
Kurds, as well as for other ethnic groups in the
Middle East, tribal loyalties often supersede
national identity. The two principal Kurdish
political parties in Iraq, for example, the
Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan, reflect rival, tribal identities.
Instead of one Kurdistan, several may emerge. If a
single state is established, it may be racked by
tribal conflicts. Such possibilities and their
impact on regional stability are not addressed. More
important, the largest amount of territory to be
included within his proposed borders for Kurdistan
is land taken from Turkey. There is no indication
Turkey will voluntarily surrender this land which
constitutes a fifth of its territory. Force would be
required. The Turkish military numbers over a
million troops; it is the eighth largest in the
world, the second largest, after the U.S., in NATO.
Since Turkey is a member of NATO it can invoke
Article V which declares an attack against one
member is considered an attack against all. These
facts and their implications are over looked in this
article.
Under Peters' proposal for the seven Muslim
countries to be politically dismembered five are
U.S. allies — Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia and Turkey. Saudi Arabia is singled out in
the article as "a root cause of the broad stagnation
in the Muslim world" and its "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." But it is this very influence the
U.S. actively encouraged and exploited throughout
the Cold War. Washington supported the spread of
Saudi religious fundamentalism as a means to
undermine secular, leftist regimes in the Islamic
world. It culminated in the Muslim insurgency in
Afghanistan against the Soviet installed Marxist
government. The U.S. had Saudi Arabia help fund the
war and Pakistan provide bases for the insurgents.
Now both allies are to be amputated of territory and
left as unviable, rump states. Such treatment of
friends can only undermine the international
credibility and influence of the U.S.
Then there are border changes for which no rational
explanations are offered. Jordan and Yemen are to be
enlarged at the expense of Saudi Arabia. Why? The
territories they are to receive are deserts devoid
of petroleum reserves. Is this a reward or a
punishment?
The most bizarre proposal calls for a "Greater
Lebanon: Phoenecia reborn." Syria is to be stripped
of its Mediterranean littoral and the land awarded
to Lebanon. This contradicts the stated purpose of
the article of creating "blood borders."
Historically, today's borders of Lebanon constitute
a Greater Lebanon. And Phoenicia was not a state; it
was a loose union of city-states, whose heartland
did not include the Syrian coast. Annexing this land
to Lebanon would upset the demographic balance
existing in the country among the various religious
communities and promote political instability.
Ironically, one of the consequences of this proposal
is that the population inhabiting this greater,
"Greater Lebanon" would be overwhelmingly Muslim and
likely vote to reunite the enlarged state with
Syria.
Peters concludes his article with a warning that if
the borders of the Middle East are not redrawn "a
portion of the bloodshed in the region will continue
to be our own." But its his proposal that will
ensure greater instability and more bloodshed
throughout the Middle East, while his advocacy of an
imperial foreign policy, "New Glory: Expanding
America's Global Supremacy," guarantees many of
those needlessly killed and maimed, and not just in
the Middle East, will be U.S. military personnel.
Joseph E. Fallon is a freelance writer and
researcher who resides in Rye, N.Y. He lived in
Egypt where he pursued his advanced degree in Middle
East studies and has traveled to Turkey,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. He earned a
masters degree in international affairs from
Columbia University's School of International and
Public Affairs and is a member of the Association
for the Study of Nationalities, Harriman Institute,
Columbia University.
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