Reshaping the Middle East - Part 1 Date 18/06/2006
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‘A smaller Iran, as a true home for the Persians, is preferable to the terrible mess we now have’
By Sir Wellington Boot Email / Print
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Henry…While recently reading an interesting Persian site, I saw an article suggesting that the many Azeris who live in Iran should secede and re-join their tribal brothers in Azerbaijan. That is, take the two current Iranian provinces of East and West Azerbaijan and join them to the existent country of Azerbaijan, governed from Baku.
‘A smaller Iran, as a true home for the Persians, is preferable to the terrible mess we now have’. This is, I suspect, the true voice of the growing tribalism that is re-emerging throughout the world. What a good thing, too.
At the beginning of these thoughts we should realize that the current 200 odd countries in the world is not some numerical fact set in stone and brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses. If 400 countries in the world were more conducive to peace and prosperity, then let it be. A second basic thought is to accept that the current Middle East set of country arrangements is not working; the vast mass of endlessly impoverished people in these countries (mainly muslims) have no hope of betterment under the present arrangements The quality of your readership understands that the current borders were basically established by Sykes and Picot after WW1, to suit the purposes of Britain and France. We are nearly 100 years on and these arrangements are now useless. Perhaps some new arrangements can be set up. The Map and its original presentation, is here.
Let us start at the top right hand corner of the map: Turkey.
Most of the map was the Turkish Ottoman Empire. In 1914 the stupid Sultan supported the equally stupid Kaiser and that was that. Sykes and Picot left Turkey with only Anatolia, but also millions of Kurds. The Kurds were promised a state but never got it. There are now about 25 million Kurds all packed into the region of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and north west Iran. Commonsense (that rarest of diplomatic qualities) will tell you that the ‘le moment de les kurds’ has arrived; a hundred years after it was promised. The great problem is to convince the Turks to let them (and the land they are on) go peacefully. The Turkish Army is full of ‘Blood and Thunder’ generals who will take some considerable convincing. Turkey has to be offered something to accept letting the Kurds go. Membership of the European Union is not viable, for the obvious reason that Turks are not Europeans. What can Turkey be offered? Leave that until Part 3. As a grace note, the new map should ensure that Mt. Ararat is in Armenia; 1915 and all that.
Moving east we come to the new state of Kurdistan.
This state is made up of lands from Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Of those three, it is the Iranians who are the best educated, most sensible and, by a mile, the most politically sophisticated. (The antics of President Achmadinejad only move the jumpy Westerners; the groups really running Iran are not under his control, neither is the country.)
Iraq is finished. Put together by the extraordinary Gertrude Bell, writer, explorer, spy and probable genius, she had the confidence of the British Government and Establishment of the early 1920s to the degree where she basically created the new Iraq. I have seen a wonderful photo of Gertrude Bell, Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill all sitting on camels in front of the Sphinx during the Cairo Conference of 1922. They were creating nations and worlds. (Those were the days, Henry!)
As much as I despise the incompetent George Bush, it is not his pointless destruction of a perfectly good American Army in Iraq that has brought this country to its end. It started dying after the fall of the Hashemite Kings in the 1950s. The excrescent Saddam merely served the purpose of keeping Iraq artificially alive until the clownish Bush intervened.
The three groups in Iraq, Shia, Sunni muslim and Kurds all hate each other with black furies that can never be assuaged; divorce is the only option to avoid a civil war with a biblical level of casualties. The Kurds know exactly what they want and they will get it. This solves one third of the ‘Iraq Problem’.
Back to the map and Iran.
Iran also loses its province at the bottom right hand part of the country; the province of Sistan ve Baluch. This goes into the new country of Baluchistan. However, Iran also gains land. The western part of Afghanistan is culturally, linguistically, historically and emotionally more connected to Iran than to eastern Afghanistan. This area plus the city of Herat goes into the new Iran. This helps create an Iran with fewer internal stresses. It also projects the country further into the area of the Caspian Oil Fields…the stage for the next serious rounds of ‘The Great Game’. Iranians would love this development as they have the very superior political skills to do well in the ‘Game’.
Moving further east, Afghanistan moves its eastern border to the Indus River, the natural boundary. Pakistan loses its Baluchi provinces to the new Baluchistan. They are a dead weight in Pakistan, as are the primitive sunni muslims around the North West Frontier, of Bengal Lancers, and Khyber Pass fame. These primitives are of the same poor stock as the rest of the eastern Afghanis (as well as having about 3 million refugee Afghanis currently living there.). With these new borders Afghanistan gains a better border with China. With some minimal negotiating skill it should not be too difficult to get oil pipelines from the Middle East to go through (the new) Iran and Afghanistan into China.
It is in Australia’s national interest for such an arrangement, given that China will soon be our biggest customer. We vitally need China to have all the energy she needs. Direct pipelines, protected from a distance by humourless Chinese generals, are much preferable to moving oil on tankers through the waters of South East Asia protected by an uncomfortably gigantic Chinese Navy run by humourless admirals. Such pipelines are a major source of revenue for the countries they cross.
A Pakistan freed from many of the worst of the muslim primitives (all unloaded into Afghanistan) could actually start to make some of the progress that they desperately need. This new arrangement would strengthen the secularist Pakistanis. The only reason that Pakistan is not making progress is because the dead weight of dumb Islam holds them back. Without this incubus, Pakistan would start moving ahead like India.
Turning West on the map: Baluchistan.
Never likely to compete with Bali for the tourist dollar, Baluchistan would need a lot of western help. ‘Close your ports to the Chinese Navy, sunshine, and you can have it’.
Under the current situation China is getting port facilities in Gwadar, courtesy of the Pakistani administration. This eventually means Chinese naval activity in the Indian Ocean…up and down the Western Australian coast? No, thank you. Australia and India have the only two navies that need show any permanent interest in this Ocean. We emphatically do not need some future naval showdown in the Indian Ocean between the Americans and the Chinese.
Baluchistan would find a soul brother in Afghanistan and could be a profitable conduit for a gas pipeline from Oman to China.
We now end up back in Iraq, with two thirds of their problem to be solved.
Going back to the top of the Persian Gulf we enter the eye of the hurricane. The term ‘Persian’ should always be used in reference to the Gulf: it is the traditional term; the Iranians insist on it and will break off any deals which don’t use that term; it encourages a more ‘Persian’ outlook on the part of many Iranians. Handled properly, Iran can be brought back from the edge toward which they are traveling because of two main factors: gross (and continuing) Western misbehavior in Iran over the past 50 years and the dangerous mysteries of Shia religious messianism. The people of Iran/Persia are traditionally pro Western. We must stop our relentless policies of driving them away; we must help them to gain ‘their place in the sun’, for our sake as well as theirs. If Australia had a sensible, non canine government, it could grasp some commercial opportunities in this situation. Non uranium opportunities, of course.
Much of the oil and gas in Iran comes from Khuzestan province, which abuts Iraq. Most of the provincial locals are Shia Arabs, not Shia Persians. The map makes a mistake in going too far along the Persian Gulf in giving land to the new Shia Arab State, (Sumeria?) This state is centered on the city of Basra. It should include the southern Iraqi provinces, full of Shia and full of oil. Looking at the map one sees two ‘arms’ of this state stretching along the east and west of the Persian Gulf; these arms engulf Kuwait. Mistake.
The Shia State should stop at the most western point of Kuwait, and go no further south. Kuwait is about 25% Shia. If it was surrounded by a Shia State we would, eventually, have a coup and its attempted absorption by the Shia state. As Saddam now knows, it is an implacable Western policy that Kuwait is not absorbed by any neighbour. We have had wars over this policy, so there is no need for more wars. The eastern arm of the Shia State should stay with Iran, as it also includes major oil and gas supplies. Even children in kindergarten learn that they must share the sandwiches on the plate.
The establishment of the Shia State gives the Arab Shia self government for the first time in 1400 years. They will be chuffed, poor buggers. It also solves the second of the three problems of Iraq. The establishment of Baghdad as a separate City State is a very innovative and imaginative suggestion. The opportunities presented by such a City State will be mentioned in Part 3.
Looking at the map one sees a place called ‘Sunni Iraq’. This is a pointless construct; no oil, not much water, no natural leading city, a desert wasteland, classic bandit territory. Scrap this and put it into an expanded Syria. Although Syria is majority Sunni muslim, it is governed by the Alawites, who are essentially a Shiite heretical group, who amount to about 12 % of the Syrian population. The absorption of ‘Sunni Iraq’ will not be a problem for Syria. There is not much chance of the Alawites being overthrown as they have the support of everyone who counts in the Middle East and beyond. The majority of the people in Syria are definitely not in that category.
The map makes another unnecessary change by, bizarrely, cutting off Syria’s coast and access to the Mediterranean. Countries do not give up access to Oceans. Leave the coastal arrangements as they currently stand in relation to Lebanon and Syria.
Israel and Palestine. The heart sinks and the fingers freeze over the key board. What HASN’T been written about this epic?
Two points: First, neither of the ruling groups in Israel or Palestine is really looking for Peace, each is still struggling for Victory. However, the majority of the people of Israel and Palestine are now content (not happy, but resigned) to live side by side. Not overwhelming majorities in either place, but majorities. These majority views are of minimal account to the ruling groups in both Israel and Palestine. (See Syrian people above.) Second, the concrete ‘Great Wall of Israel’ winding its way through the lives and property of both Israelis and Palestinians will emerge as the final border between the two countries. The Palestinians will get the slums of East Jerusalem, but the (glorious) Old City will stay with Israel. This will come about because neither the Jewish religious establishment nor the Vatican will agree to have their sacred sites in the hands of orthodox religious Muslims. Politicians in Europe and America will not relish the prospect of having to publicly defend handing these sites over to Hamas and the fanatical warriors of ‘Islam Uber Alles’. The fate of the Buddha Statue in Islamic Afghanistan is still fresh in western minds. Orthodox religious Muslims are simply not trusted by Jewish or Christian leaders and people with the irreplaceable historical cultural sites of Judeao-Christian civilization. I concur with this judgement.
Crossing over the River Jordan (music please maestro!) we come to a key development in moving the Middle East (and the forlorn, impoverished muslim masses) forward.
Jordan is run by the Hashemite clan. The current King, Abdullah, is the smartest son of the very smart, late King Hussein, of beloved memory. Both Hussein and Abdullah are descendents of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. In the Islamic world this is upper case, BIG TIME. No one denies this historical fact and it gives religious credibility without equal to the Hashemite clan. (In passing it should be noted that the King of Morocco is also a descendent of Mohammed.) The Hashemites were championed by Lawrence of Arabia in the post WW1 carve up of the Ottoman Empire. Colonel Lawrence thought they were the better choice to run Arabia (and its oil fields) over the Saud family. The Sauds were championed by Gertrude Bell, and they eventually won the support of 10 Downing Street. That was the beginning of the problems.
There is a persistent historical account of the Saud family which details them as actually Jews from Baghdad who, in the 1720s, fell in with the founders of Wahhabi Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. It will cost you your life to say this in Saudi Arabia. Even in the wider Islamic world this is only whispered, but, personally, I suspect it to be true. The idea of the muslim sites of Mecca and Medina in the hands of ‘Marrano (Jewish) muslims’ like the Saud Family is the stuff of novels. (Operator, I would like to place a person to person call to Mr. Dan Brown…) This fact (yes?/no?) is a serious matter for muslims and lies there, like a poisonous black snake, waiting to be used in the now necessary overthrow of Saudi Arabia and its division between Jordan and (an increasingly pro Western)Yemen.
The current strife between Islam and the West is financed by Wahhabi muslims using Saudi oil money. Without this financing there would be no infrastructure of camps, Taliban warriors, promotion of turmoil and treason among western resident muslims, payments to imams and control of muslim community associations in the West, (and Australia) money for travels and meetings, purchase of equipment, purchase of propaganda to muddy the waters, no Bali bombing. The Koran has always made the terrorism permissible; now the oil money makes the terrorism possible.
The trade off with the Saud Family is that the Wahhabi establishment in Arabia will support the continuation of the (Marrano? Jewish?) Saud rule in Arabia and the Saud Family will look away as billions of dollars are spent attacking the Judeao-Christian West. America goes along with this arrangement because of oil deals with the Sauds. To remind young readers, the 1973 oil crisis included an arab demand for a 100% increase in the price paid to them for oil…from $3 dollars a barrel to $6 dollars!
At $70 a barrel and rising this arrangement is now obviously collapsing and the Wahhabis are clearly out of control. (People who think that foreign policy is a subset of social welfare policy should not read the rest of this paragraph). The only long term solution to the Wahhabi problem is a ‘final solution’. This code word can be carried out by the Bedouin warriors of the Hashemite King. There are many desert nooks and crannies in the Arabian Peninsula where CNN does not go. Clearly the Wahhabis have caused (and are continuing to cause) far too much trouble to International Islam and the rest of us; just like the Albigensian Catholics (‘the Cathars’) caused far too much trouble to the wider Catholic world in the early 1200s. Few muslims today would shed a tear if the trouble making Wahhabis quickly joined their trouble making Cathar predecessors in Paradise.
The idea of some sort of ‘Islamic Sacred State’ is a total non starter. It would be a casus belli on an almost daily basis. The annual Haj to Mecca would see an annual attempted coup. Hand over Mecca and Medina and all the Arabian oil to the physical control of a descendent of the Prophet…Allah u Akbar.
The key is Turkey: The Turkish ruling group are the political descendents of the great Kemal Ataturk (the Turkish general who slapped our little white bottoms at Gallipoli. Gallipoli is Turkey’s Kokoda.) He was a non believing muslim who wanted a Western Turkey. He secularised Turkey to a broad degree; however the unspoken prayer of this group was always to be accepted as Europeans. The rise of the European Union gave them their opportunity and they have pursued entry relentlessly.
Turkey will be refused entry to the EU. When this final refusal comes (because they are not Christian Europeans, they are muslim Turks), the Secular Agenda in Turkey will experience a defining existential crisis. To salvage this serious situation (and turn the refusal of the EU into an opportunity for the people of the Middle East) the European Union must, with American help, propose for the area covered by this map, a ‘Middle East Economic Community’, (MEEC). This is an organization below the level of political union which exists now in Europe; rather, it is a union which concentrates on economics, as did the original EEC, the European Economic Community. In short, a resurrection of the economic unity that existed under the Ottoman Empire, without the political control by the Turks.
The starting point for this is the endemic and peace threatening poverty in which almost all the muslim peoples in this area live. This poverty must be eradicated both for the sake of the people there and for the safety of the West. Straight after the end on WW1 intelligent leaders in the West saw that Communism had to be opposed by raising the standard of living of the entire West, to cut off any appeal that Communism might have on people living in grinding poverty. That program of steadily rising living standards paid off, especially after 1945. We now need to do the same for the muslims in the Middle East, lest their poverty result in (nuclear?) destructive messianic Islam or tidal waves of muslim economic refugees into Europe. This is not identical to the Marshall Plan, because the finances for such a ‘Middle East Economic Community’ are indigenous…oil and gas.
This will not be easy because there are seriously powerful Western interests who would oppose such a scheme, principally the arms merchants (2nd biggest business in the world?) and the oil companies who want oil prices to keep rising, rather than settle into a sensible band of $40-$50 per barrel. This project to raise Middle East muslim standards of living would require the same level of grim determination that the Western bourgeoisie showed in gutting the power of the aristocrats and Kings in the18th and 19th centuries. Today’s ‘aristocrats and kings’ are the arms merchants, oil companies and illicit drug traders. All three put their own personal interests (like true aristocrats) ahead of the long term interest of the West. Why should the core of Western civilization …the bourgeoisie, the middle class, the mittelstand… keep silent while the current ‘aristocrats’ endanger everything we have gained? (Yes, Operator, I can hold on for Madame La Guillotine…)
