Well, at least it’s safe to say that putting the latest musings from Ralph Peters into practice would certainly make the recent Texas congressional redistricting brouhaha look like a fun-filled day at the state fair, complete with funnel cakes and corndogs for all.
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 [my note: great freakin’ line].
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.
As I’ve repeatedly stated, I have long found the efforts of Mr. Peters to be worth highlighting, either for their thoughtful nature, actual value or intriguing look at possible futures. With the above intro, Mr. Peters launches into a bold area — a one-man redrawing of the national borders currently found in the cauldron that is the Middle East. Indeed, he even creates some new countries, though not with the arbitrary capriciousness that led to many of the current borders. Here are his before and after maps, though I do highly recommend reading the article for a wealth of reasoning and history.
Is the plan realistically feasible? Quite possibly yes, with the hopes of a very positive global effect. Is the actual implementation of the plan realistically feasible? Probably not without a vast degree of bloodshed — and maybe even radiation — in the region, which would probably require an entirely new drawing of the map based on surviving populations.
Hat tip to CDR Salamander, who rightly calls out Mr. Peters for cheesing out on the following tidbit:
But the issue of the territories surrounding Jerusalem, a city stained with thousands of years of blood, may prove intractable beyond our lifetimes. Where all parties have turned their god into a real-estate tycoon, literal turf battles have a tenacity unrivaled by mere greed for oil wealth or ethnic squabbles. So let us set aside this single overstudied issue and turn to those that are studiously ignored.
I’m going to have to side with Salamander here, as it is quite the cop-out when included in such a broad vision. After all, the West Bank and the Palestinians have historically been a wee bit of an issue, somewhat of a speedbump on the roadmap to peace. Tom Clancy had an idea: let the supposedly-neutral Swiss Guards handle the multi-religion holy ground juncture that is Jerusalem. I have another idea: let’s go really neutral. The Swiss Guards can monitor the transit points into and out of Jerusalem, a truly neutral party — like say a committee of Bhuddist monks — can administer the city, and the Brothers Earp and Doc Holliday can keep the Jerusalem clean of weapons.
Hey, I’m just brainstorming.