The "New" Map of the Middle East

Goldberg's somewhat tongue in cheek map of the 'new' Middle East (map: The Atlantic).

What will the Middle East look like "five or 10 or 50 years from now"? In this article Jeffrey Goldberg sketches an answer. He argues that US regional intervention is transforming the region in ways unanticipated by the Bush administration and its neoconservative backers:

"in the next 20 years, new states could emerge as old ones shrink, fracture or disappear. Khuzestan, a mostly Arab province of majority-Persian Iran, could become independent. Lebanon...could become partly absorbed by Syria, whose future is also uncertain....And let's not forget Pakistan..."

Yes, this could come to pass. The process is well underway in Kurdistan, and in Somaliland, the breakaway de facto state on the Horn of Africa. But it's not the full story. A hotch-potch is evolving throughout the Middle East in which elites - whether feudal, ethnic, ideological, theocratic or criminal - exercise power through a variety of guises and at different levels.

In this hotch-potch there will be strong states - like Iran and Israel - and rump states. It is not hard, for example, to imagine the Pakistan federal government holding sway only over Islamabad and Rawalpindi, while ineffectually claiming sovereignty over Karachi, Baluchistan and Waziristan. There will also be situations where states concentrate on natural resources (like an oil-rich province or a river), on defendable geographic features, or at strategic transit points.

And there will be many regions, provinces, cities, neighbourhoods and streets where authority is held by non-state organizations - hereditary families, militias, religious and ideological sects, clans, criminal gangs, rogue military and police units. There is no better example of this process than Iraq, where, as journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahab explains:

"each province, each city, is separate from the capital, is a state functioning by itself...Baghdad is a microcosm of Iraq. Each neighbourhood is fragmented into its own state, each street is run by a different warlord, by a different gang, by a different militia...You need to be supported by this warlord in your street to survive."

"[Basra] is totally under the control of the Mahdi Army. It is not only the Mahdi Army, but the Mahdi Army is one of the strongest groups there...and each controls a certain part of the economic and social life of the city."

Goldberg sees the future of the Middle East as little different from its immediate past - an assortment of states, small to large, where borders have shifted somewhat, some new states have formed, and others have shrunk or disappeared. This is tidy, can be grasped by western politicians, diplomats and officials (who think in terms of nation-states and capitals), and plots readily on a map. But it bears superficial resemblance to the complex situation on the ground.

Comments

[Emmanuel St John]

Let us hope Palestine too will be restored to its former glory.

[Kotare]

Hi Emmanuel - thanks for your comment. In my view the situation in Palestine, particularly in Gaza, is looking something like Ghaith Abdul-Ahad's description.

As for Israel - well, it could either remain a very strong state, or things could go badly wrong. I read a while ago that Israeli historians carefully studied the history of the Christian crusader kingdoms - I wonder what lessons they drew?

[FDChief]

I have to agree with you on the Goldberg article. I thought it had some valid points but was wildly facile. His good observations were mostly that the last ten years or so have seen a lot of non-state cats get out of the middle eastern bag. But then he tried to herd these cats back into a DIFFERENT bag. Who outside of a handful of insanely optimistic Kurdish politicians think that a landlocked Kurdistan will survive the mutual enmity of Turkey, Syria, Iran and whatever is left of Iraq when the dust settles? Or that a ministatelet of "The Sinai" is viable as such?

Likewise, he assumes that the non-state actors want to BE states. Old thinking, IMO.

And I've often thought that the U.S. needs to be circumspect about our latter-day Kingdom of Jerusalem. The idea of planting a bunch of non-muslim foreigners on the southeastern shore of the Levant has been tried before. Didn't work out so well.

Worth reading for the ideas, but the conclusions? Not so much, I thought...

[Kotare]

Thanks for your comment FDChief. Yes, he touched on some interesting ideas, but that was about it for me also.

I've got to say also that I sighed when I reached the point in the article where he quoted Ralph Peters. Peters' vaunted map is not much different to the status quo, still cast from a state-centric perspective, and out of touch with the reality on the ground. I mean, is it conceivable that Iraq can be neatly divided into Kurdistan, a Shia state and a Sunni state?

[Yours Truly]

I believe the recent debacle 'twixt Russia & georgia will have some lasting effects in this region, particularly with regards to israel. Perhaps we'll have to wait & see...

[Kotare]

Interesting comment, YT. What are you picking?

[said han]

I dont know what gonna hapen to middl east after 20 or 50 years but i'll promise the world that we Baloch nation going to fight and fight for our freedom we may not succeed in this war but i promise another war will start again and again untill the freedom or the last Baloch on the face of the earth we love our motherland and we will never give it up to bloody pwoer lovers like irani and pokistan or any greedy artificial nations we will fight them and will fight and fear no death the blood will flash and revirs of balochistan will become red the soil will becoms red pwoders but we will never submitt to bloody iran pokistan or afghansiatn we want our freedom and nothing less the freedom.

Said Han