Remaking the Middle East

By: BULENT KENES 

The vast geography called the Middle East, notwithstanding the disagreement about its borders and scope, has been suffering from a multitude of problems for many years, and no one can deny the role of the West as the inventor of its name in these problems.

If a traveler had asked two centuries ago, "How can I get to the Middle East from here?" I think, he wouldn't have obtained the same answer he would have obtained today. This is because there was no region known to the world as the Middle East.

In the 19th century, the term Middle East started to be used in a purely Eurocentric manner to refer to the region where Asia, Europe and Africa come closest to each other. The term Middle East, ranging from the Mediterranean to Pakistan and including the Arabian Peninsula, was first used by the British. At that time, Britain and European countries were regarded as the center of the world, and the terms Far East, Near East and Middle East were coined with reference to this center.

If another traveler had asked 100 years ago how to get to the Middle Eastern countries -- which are today a major source of news for the world -- he wouldn't have gotten any answer. Thus, the current Middle East and its name are artificial products of Europe, and the Eurocentric regional engineering efforts by European powers and baseless artificiality of the region lie at the heart of the problems the Middle East is currently facing, I guess. Indeed, countries had been created artificially as a result of the contention, rivalry and deals between the European powers concerning the region between 1914 and 1922, and these countries have failed to emerge as nations, despite a century that has passed since. And this is the main reason for the never-ending problems in the region.

David Fromkin's masterpiece, "A Peace to End All Peace," which is still considered as a top reference book for students of Middle Eastern studies, is a must-read book for all those who want to understand the historical background of today's developments in the region. In this book, Fromkin describes the region as it stood 100 years ago as follows:

“At the time, the political landscape of the Middle East looked different from that of today. Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not exist then. Most of the Middle East still rested as it had for centuries…”

Fromkin moves on to explain how at the peak of their power, European countries acted with an intoxication of power:

“The European powers at that time believed they could change Muslim Asia in the very fundamentals of its political existence, and in their attempt to do so introduced an artificial state system into the Middle East that has made it into a region of countries that have not become nations even today.”

One cannot agree more with the following argument by Fromkin, who also noted the different approaches among rival European powers to the question of how to restructure the Middle East, a region where the basic sociopolitical dynamic is religion:

“The basis of political life in the Middle East -- religion -- was called by the Russians, who proposed communism, and by the British, who proposed nationalism or dynastic loyalty, in its place. Khomeini's Iran in the Shi'ite world and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere in the Sunni world keep that issue alive. The French government, which in the Middle East did allow religion to be the basis of politics -- even of its own -- championed one sect against the others; and that, too, is an issue kept alive, notably in the communal strife that has ravaged Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s.”

A significant proportion of the powers that competed for regional design at that time, when oil and other energy sources had not been major factors in Middle Eastern politics, are still the major players in the current setting as well. Moreover, many years have passed since the emergence of oil and natural gas as basic factors in the regional politics. Furthermore, European countries are not the only powers that now seek to redesign the region. The developments that came in the footsteps of the Arab revolts that started in 2011 are, unfortunately, as chaotic as the era when the region attained its current artificial borders between 1914 and 1922. Even, one can suggest, today's developments are much more complicated.

The task of mid-level European bureaucrats had not been any challenging in drawing lines over the maps to create artificial countries in a vast geography that, at that time, lacked states or nations in a modern sense. Even, one can say, some new countries were created just to employ the idle children of the collaborating families -- now they are referred to as "princes." These unfounded, artificial countries that have a past at most of 100 years have been shaken deep down to their cornerstones and their spurious foundations are rocking. This process is accompanied by existentialist worries and concerns not only for the countries concerned and the region, but also outside the region. These tremors also tend to be perceived by non-regional actors as an invitation to reshape the region. In the final analysis, the sad truth acknowledged by everyone is that regional powers fail to take the lead in shaping their own region. Worse still, the regional and global power balances that are being re-leveled in the Middle East have the potential and risk of transforming this transition process into an incubator for a global crisis.

In the context of the coup d'état in Egypt, the impasse in Syria, the sectarian conflict in Iraq, the upheavals in Maghreb, we see or hear that the existing alliance are reshaped or new ones are being established. Robert Fisk's news report that appeared in the UK Independent on Sept. 30 is such a development. Thus, a delegation of generals from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) recently contacted the Bashar al-Assad regime to discuss the potential for a joint struggle against the extremist groups that had come to the forefront so as to overshadow the role of the Syrian opposition, and this development is so significant that it entails that we should completely revise our perspective about the Syrian crisis.

And it is no longer a secret that non-regional actors that do not remain indifferent to the regional developments where alliances and axes are in a constant state of flux work up crazy ideas on different scenarios. Obviously, those who depart from the deep-running and never-ending crisis stemming from the Middle East's artificial political map may be expected to ponder upon the question of creating a new political map that would fit the religious, ethnic and cultural realities of the region. Given the fact that the region's own dynamics fail to create a new political map, we can expect the views and scenarios about this question will be brought sooner or later to the agendas of the powers that have decisive influence over the region. It is a very strong possibility that there will be direct or indirect attempts to redraw the Middle Eastern map at some time in future.

Frankly speaking, this was the perspective with which I read Robin Wright's article, "Imagining a Remapped Middle East," which appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 28. This map that aims to create 14 countries from the five-country geography in the Middle East will be frequently recalled in future by those who think about this region.

(With thanks to the writer and the Turkish English Daily Today's Zaman)