Plans for Redrawing the Middle East:
The Project for a “New Middle East”
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
“Hegemony
is as old as Mankind…” -Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security
Advisor
The
term “New Middle East” was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel
Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the
Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more
imposing term, the “Greater Middle East.”
This
shift in foreign policy phraseology coincided with the inauguration of the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern
Mediterranean. The term and conceptualization of the “New Middle East,”
was subsequently heralded by the U.S. Secretary of State and the Israeli Prime
Minister at the height of the Anglo-American sponsored Israeli siege of
Lebanon. Prime Minister Olmert and Secretary Rice had informed the
international media that a project for a “New Middle East” was being launched
from Lebanon.
This
announcement was a confirmation of an Anglo-American-Israeli “military roadmap”
in the Middle East. This project, which has been in the planning stages
for several years, consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and
violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian
Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.
The
“New Middle East” project was introduced publicly by Washington and Tel Aviv
with the expectation that Lebanon would be the pressure point for realigning
the whole Middle East and thereby unleashing the forces of “constructive
chaos.” This “constructive chaos” --which generates conditions of violence and
warfare throughout the region-- would in turn be used so that the United
States, Britain, and Israel could redraw the map of the Middle East in
accordance with their geo-strategic needs and objectives.
New
Middle East Map
Secretary
Condoleezza Rice stated during a press conference that “[w]hat we’re seeing
here [in regards to the destruction of Lebanon and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon],
in a sense, is the growing—the ‘birth pangs’—of a ‘New Middle East’ and
whatever we do we [meaning the United States] have to be certain that we’re
pushing forward to the New Middle East [and] not going back to the old one.”1 Secretary Rice was
immediately criticized for her statements both within Lebanon and
internationally for expressing indifference to the suffering of an entire
nation, which was being bombed indiscriminately by the Israeli Air
Force.
The
Anglo-American Military Roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia
U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s speech on the "New Middle East"
had set the stage. The Israeli attacks on Lebanon --which had been fully
endorsed by Washington and London-- have further compromised and validated the
existence of the geo-strategic objectives of the United States, Britain, and
Israel. According to Professor Mark Levine the “neo-liberal globalizers and
neo-conservatives, and ultimately the Bush Administration, would latch on to
creative destruction as a way of describing the process by which they hoped to
create their new world orders,” and that “creative destruction [in] the United
States was, in the words of neo-conservative philosopher and Bush adviser
Michael Ledeen, ‘an awesome revolutionary force’ for (…) creative destruction…”2
Anglo-American
occupied Iraq, particularly Iraqi Kurdistan, seems to be the preparatory ground
for the balkanization (division) and finlandization (pacification) of the
Middle East. Already the legislative framework, under the Iraqi Parliament and
the name of Iraqi federalization, for the partition of Iraq into three portions
is being drawn out. (See map below)
Moreover,
the Anglo-American military roadmap appears to be vying an entry into Central
Asia via the Middle East. The Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are
stepping stones for extending U.S. influence into the former Soviet Union and
the ex-Soviet Republics of Central Asia. The Middle East is to some extent the
southern tier of Central Asia. Central Asia in turn is also termed as “Russia’s
Southern Tier” or the Russian “Near Abroad.”
Many
Russian and Central Asian scholars, military planners, strategists, security
advisors, economists, and politicians consider Central Asia (“Russia’s Southern
Tier”) to be the vulnerable and “soft under-belly” of the Russian Federation.3
It
should be noted that in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and
Its Geo-strategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S.
National Security Advisor, alluded to the modern Middle East as a control lever
of an area he, Brzezinski, calls the Eurasian Balkans. The Eurasian
Balkans consists of the Caucasus (Georgia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and
Armenia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) and to some extent both Iran and
Turkey. Iran and Turkey both form the northernmost tiers of the Middle East
(excluding the Caucasus4) that edge into
Europe and the former Soviet Union.
The
Map of the “New Middle East”
A
relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and
Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and
military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in
public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the
general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle
East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified
as the “New Middle East.”
Map
of the “New Middle East”
|
Note: The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel
Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006,
Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map
Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).
Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, has most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles. |
This
map of the “New Middle East” seems to be based on several other maps, including
older maps of potential boundaries in the Middle East extending back to the era
of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and World War I. This map is showcased
and presented as the brainchild of retired Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S. Army) Ralph
Peters, who believes the redesigned borders contained in the map will
fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.
The
map of the “New Middle East” was a key element in the retired
Lieutenant-Colonel’s book, Never Quit the Fight, which was
released to the public on July 10, 2006. This map of a redrawn Middle
East was also published, under the title of Blood Borders: How a better
Middle East would look, in the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal
with commentary from Ralph Peters.5
It
should be noted that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted to the Office of
the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department,
and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on
strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.
It
has been written that Ralph Peters’ “four previous books on strategy have been
highly influential in government and military circles,” but one can be
pardoned for asking if in fact quite the opposite could be taking place. Could
it be Lieutenant-Colonel Peters is revealing and putting forward what
Washington D.C. and its strategic planners have anticipated for the Middle
East?
The
concept of a redrawn Middle East has been presented as a “humanitarian” and
“righteous” arrangement that would benefit the people(s) of the Middle East and
its peripheral regions. According to Ralph Peter’s:
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 [Muslims], 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 Bosphorus 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. 6
(emphasis added)
(emphasis added)
"Necessary
Pain"
Besides believing that there is “cultural stagnation” in the Middle East, it must be noted that Ralph Peters admits that his propositions are “draconian” in nature, but he insists that they are necessary pains for the people of the Middle East. This view of necessary pain and suffering is in startling parallel to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s belief that the devastation of Lebanon by the Israeli military was a necessary pain or “birth pang” in order to create the “New Middle East” that Washington, London, and Tel Aviv envision.
Besides believing that there is “cultural stagnation” in the Middle East, it must be noted that Ralph Peters admits that his propositions are “draconian” in nature, but he insists that they are necessary pains for the people of the Middle East. This view of necessary pain and suffering is in startling parallel to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s belief that the devastation of Lebanon by the Israeli military was a necessary pain or “birth pang” in order to create the “New Middle East” that Washington, London, and Tel Aviv envision.
Moreover,
it is worth noting that the subject of the Armenian Genocide is being
politicized and stimulated in Europe to offend Turkey.7
The
overhaul, dismantlement, and reassembly of the nation-states of the Middle East
have been packaged as a solution to the hostilities in the Middle East, but
this is categorically misleading, false, and fictitious. The advocates of a
“New Middle East” and redrawn boundaries in the region avoid and fail to
candidly depict the roots of the problems and conflicts in the contemporary
Middle East. What the media does not acknowledge is the fact that almost
all major conflicts afflicting the Middle East are the consequence of
overlapping Anglo-American-Israeli agendas.
Many
of the problems affecting the contemporary Middle East are the result of the
deliberate aggravation of pre-existing regional tensions. Sectarian division,
ethnic tension and internal violence have been traditionally exploited by
the United States and Britain in various parts of the globe including
Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Iraq is just one of
many examples of the Anglo-American strategy of “divide and conquer.” Other
examples are Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan.
Amongst
the problems in the contemporary Middle East is the lack of genuine democracy
which U.S. and British foreign policy has actually been deliberately
obstructing. Western-style "Democracy" has been a requirement
only for those Middle Eastern states which do not conform to Washington's
political demands. Invariably, it constitutes a pretext for confrontation.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are examples of undemocratic states that the
United States has no problems with because they are firmly alligned within the
Anglo-American orbit or sphere.
Additionally,
the United States has deliberately blocked or displaced genuine democratic
movements in the Middle East from Iran in 1953 (where a U.S./U.K. sponsored
coup was staged against the democratic government of Prime Minister Mossadegh)
to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the Arab Sheikdoms, and Jordan where the
Anglo-American alliance supports military control, absolutists, and dictators
in one form or another. The latest example of this is Palestine.
The
Turkish Protest at NATO’s Military College in Rome
Lieutenant-Colonel
Ralph Peters’ map of the “New Middle East” has sparked angry reactions in
Turkey. According to Turkish press releases on September 15, 2006 the map
of the “New Middle East” was displayed in NATO’s Military College in Rome,
Italy. It was additionally reported that Turkish officers were immediately
outraged by the presentation of a portioned and segmented Turkey.8 The map received
some form of approval from the U.S. National War Academy before it was unveiled
in front of NATO officers in Rome.
The
Turkish Chief of Staff, General Buyukanit, contacted the U.S. Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and protested the event and the
exhibition of the redrawn map of the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.9 Furthermore the
Pentagon has gone out of its way to assure Turkey that the map does not reflect
official U.S. policy and objectives in the region, but this seems to be
conflicting with Anglo-American actions in the Middle East and NATO-garrisoned
Afghanistan.
Is
there a Connection between Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “Eurasian Balkans” and the
“New Middle East” Project?
The
following are important excerpts and passages from former U.S. National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book, The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives. Brzezinski also
states that both Turkey and Iran, the two most powerful states of the “Eurasian
Balkans,” located on its southern tier, are “potentially vulnerable to
internal ethnic conflicts [balkanization],” and that, “If either or both of
them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become
unmanageable.”10
It seems that a divided and balkanized Iraq would be the best means of accomplishing this. Taking what we know from the White House's own admissions; there is a belief that “creative destruction and chaos” in the Middle East are beneficial assets to reshaping the Middle East, creating the “New Middle East,” and furthering the Anglo-American roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia:
It seems that a divided and balkanized Iraq would be the best means of accomplishing this. Taking what we know from the White House's own admissions; there is a belief that “creative destruction and chaos” in the Middle East are beneficial assets to reshaping the Middle East, creating the “New Middle East,” and furthering the Anglo-American roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia:
In
Europe, the Word “Balkans” conjures up images of ethnic conflicts and
great-power regional rivalries. Eurasia, too, has its “Balkans,” but the
Eurasian Balkans are much larger, more populated, even more religiously
and ethnically heterogenous. They are located within that large geographic
oblong that demarcates the central zone of global instability (...) that
embraces portions of southeastern Europe, Central Asia and parts of South Asia
[Pakistan, Kashmir, Western India], the Persian Gulf area, and the Middle East.
The Eurasian Balkans form the inner core of that large oblong (…) they differ from its outer zone in one particularly significant way: they are a power vacuum. Although most of the states located in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East are also unstable, American power is that region’s [meaning the Middle East’s] ultimate arbiter. The unstable region in the outer zone is thus an area of single power hegemony and is tempered by that hegemony. In contrast, the Eurasian Balkans are truly reminiscent of the older, more familiar Balkans of southeastern Europe: not only are its political entities unstable but they tempt and invite the intrusion of more powerful neighbors, each of whom is determined to oppose the region’s domination by another. It is this familiar combination of a power vacuum and power suction that justifies the appellation “Eurasian Balkans.”
The Eurasian Balkans form the inner core of that large oblong (…) they differ from its outer zone in one particularly significant way: they are a power vacuum. Although most of the states located in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East are also unstable, American power is that region’s [meaning the Middle East’s] ultimate arbiter. The unstable region in the outer zone is thus an area of single power hegemony and is tempered by that hegemony. In contrast, the Eurasian Balkans are truly reminiscent of the older, more familiar Balkans of southeastern Europe: not only are its political entities unstable but they tempt and invite the intrusion of more powerful neighbors, each of whom is determined to oppose the region’s domination by another. It is this familiar combination of a power vacuum and power suction that justifies the appellation “Eurasian Balkans.”
The
traditional Balkans represented a potential geopolitical prize in the struggle
for European supremacy. The Eurasian Balkans, astride the inevitably emerging
transportation network meant to link more directly Eurasia’s richest and most
industrious western and eastern extremities, are also geopolitically
significant. Moreover, they are of importance from the standpoint of
security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate
and more powerful neighbors, namely, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, with China also
signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian
Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an
enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the
region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.
The
world’s energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or
three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy anticipate that world
demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most
significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of
Asia’s economic development is already generating massive pressures for the
exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy, and the Central Asian
region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and
oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.
Access
to that resource and sharing in its potential wealth represent objectives that
stir national ambitions, motivate corporate interests, rekindle historical
claims, revive imperial aspirations, and fuel international rivalries. The situation is
made all the more volatile by the fact that the region is not only a power
vacuum but is also internally unstable.
(…)
The
Eurasian Balkans include nine countries that one way or another fit the
foregoing description, with two others as potential candidates. The nine are
Kazakstan [alternative and official spelling of Kazakhstan] , Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia—all of
them formerly part of the defunct Soviet Union—as well as Afghanistan.
The
potential additions to the list are Turkey and Iran, both of them much more
politically and economically viable, both active contestants for regional
influence within the Eurasian Balkans, and thus both significant geo-strategic
players in the region. At the same time, both are potentially vulnerable to
internal ethnic conflicts. If either or both of them were to be destabilized,
the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable, while efforts to
restrain regional domination by Russia could even become futile. 11
(emphasis
added)
Redrawing
the Middle East
The Middle
East, in some regards, is a striking parallel to the Balkans and
Central-Eastern Europe during the years leading up the First World War. In
the wake of the the First World War the borders of the Balkans and
Central-Eastern Europe were redrawn. This region experienced a period of
upheaval, violence and conflict, before and after World War I, which was
the direct result of foreign economic interests and interference.
The reasons
behind the First World War are more sinister than the standard school-book
explanation, the assassination of the heir to the throne of the
Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo.
Economic factors were the real motivation for the large-scale war in 1914.
Norman Dodd, a former Wall Street banker and investigator for the U.S. Congress, who examined U.S. tax-exempt foundations, confirmed in a 1982 interview that those powerful individuals who from behind the scenes controlled the finances, policies, and government of the United States had in fact also planned U.S. involvement in a war, which would contribute to entrenching their grip on power.
The following testimonial is from the transcript of Norman Dodd's interview with G. Edward Griffin;
We are now at the year 1908, which was the year that the Carnegie Foundation began operations. And, in that year, the trustees meeting, for the first time, raised a specific question, which they discussed throughout the balance of the year, in a very learned fashion. And the question is this: Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people? And they conclude that, no more effective means to that end is known to humanity, than war. So then, in 1909, they raise the second question, and discuss it, namely, how do we involve the United States in a war?
Well, I doubt, at that time, if there was any subject more removed from the thinking of most of the people of this country [the United States], than its involvement in a war. There were intermittent shows [wars] in the Balkans, but I doubt very much if many people even knew where the Balkans were. And finally, they answer that question as follows: we must control the State Department.
And then, that very naturally raises the question of how do we do that? They answer it by saying, we must take over and control the diplomatic machinery of this country and, finally, they resolve to aim at that as an objective. Then, time passes, and we are eventually in a war, which would be World War I. At that time, they record on their minutes a shocking report in which they dispatch to President Wilson a telegram cautioning him to see that the war does not end too quickly. And finally, of course, the war is over.
At that time, their interest shifts over to preventing what they call a reversion of life in the United States to what it was prior to 1914, when World War I broke out.
(emphasis added)
The
redrawing and partition of the Middle East from the Eastern Mediterranean
shores of Lebanon and Syria to Anatolia (Asia
Minor), Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian Plateau responds to
broad economic, strategic and military objectives, which are part of a
longstanding Anglo-American and Israeli agenda in the region.
The Middle East has been conditioned by outside forces into a powder keg that is ready to explode with the right trigger, possibly the launching of Anglo-American and/or Israeli air raids against Iran and Syria. A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel.
The Middle East has been conditioned by outside forces into a powder keg that is ready to explode with the right trigger, possibly the launching of Anglo-American and/or Israeli air raids against Iran and Syria. A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel.
NATO-garrisoned
Afghanistan has been successfully divided, all but in name. Animosity has been
inseminated in the Levant, where a Palestinian civil war is being nurtured and
divisions in Lebanon agitated. The Eastern Mediterranean has been successfully
militarized by NATO. Syria and Iran continue to be demonized by the
Western media, with a view to justifying a military agenda. In turn, the Western
media has fed, on a daily basis, incorrect and biased notions that the
populations of Iraq cannot co-exist and that the conflict is not a war of
occupation but a "civil war" characterised by domestic strife
between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic. In fact, they are part of a carefully designed covert intelligence agenda.
Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a "divide and conquer strategy" which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.
Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic. In fact, they are part of a carefully designed covert intelligence agenda.
Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a "divide and conquer strategy" which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.
Mahdi Darius
Nazemroaya is in an independent writer based in Ottawa specializing in Middle
Eastern and Central Asian affairs. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for
Research on Globalization (CRG).
Notes
1 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Special
Briefing on the Travel to the Middle East and Europe of Secretary Condoleezza
Rice (Press Conference, U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C., July 21,
2006).
2 Professor Mark LeVine, The New Creative
Destruction, Asia Times, August 22, 2006.
3 Professor Andrej Kreutz, The Geopolitics of
post-Soviet Russia and the Middle East, Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ)
(Washington, D.C.: Association of Arab-American University Graduates, January
2002).
5 Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) Ralph Peters, Blood
borders: How a better Middle East would look, Armed Forces Journal
(AFJ), June 2006.
James
McConalogue, French against Turks: Talking about Armenian Genocide, The
Brussels Journal, October 10, 2006.
8 Suleyman Kurt, Carved-up Map of Turkey at NATO
Prompts U.S. Apology, Zaman (Turkey), September 29, 2006.
10 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand
Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives (New York
City: Basic Books, 1997).
Sumber:http://al-faedah.blogspot.com/2012/02/plans-for-redrawing-middle-east-project.html