The thesis of the New Middle East was not set forth after the events took place between Israel-Lebanon and Palestine in the last three weeks. It is a project that USA want to implement for a long time. It is possible to see what “the New Middle East” means, what it is planning to change and how wide range an area it compasses by looking the maps in the Armed Forces Journal.

It has been three weeks since Israel began destroying Beirut. The severe bombardment, which is enforced to annihilate Hizbollah, has caused the death of about 1000 Lebanese civilians. The Israelite army, which is known with its shots, cannot hit the mark this time. The places, where the Israelites suppose to be the cells of Hizbollah militants, turn out to be dairies, houses or hospitals. The mainstream media does not define the exchange of missiles between the Hizbollah militants and Israel Centrifugal Forces as a “war”. It is clear that eveybody prefer to call it as a “crisis”. Well, has there ever been a time when there was not a crisis in the Middle East?

Whether you call it a war or a crisis, there is an immutable fact that the USA could have stopped Israel from the very beginning. Thus, Beirut would not go back to the days when it got through the civil war 16 years ago, the civilians would not die and 1 million people would not have to desert their homes.  However, things developed in a different direction and the US President George Bush preferred to watch events with a distant view by putting forward “Israel’s right of defence”.

When the USA Foreign Minister Condoleezza Rice went to the Middle East tour, those who had a hope for peace dissapointed a lot. While Rice was being protested in Gaza and Ramallah and was blaming Hizbollah in Lebanon, she announced that the USA supports Israel. What’s more, she didn’t hesitate to say frankly in the Middle East Conference that there is a slim chance of a cease-fire. According to Rice, there should have been more death for a treaty. There was always an implied common point in these negotiations and meetings; “the New Middle East”. Moreover, all the things occurred was the travails of the Middle East.

The thesis of the New Middle East was not set forth after the events took place between Israel-Lebanon and Palestine in the last three weeks. It is a project that the USA wants to implement for a long time. It is possible to see what “the New Middle East” means, what it is planning to change and how wide range an area it compasses by looking the maps in the Armed Forces Journal.

The map in the web site of the journal looks like a kind of product of a plastic surgery. It shows “than” and “after” of the Middle East. The map creates disquiet at the first look. However than, one can smile under his moustache if he has, if not they will have a big smile starting from the edge of their lips. According to the map, the known map of the Middle East will change dramattically.

Up until now, there has been many scenarios scripted and many maps charted including the boundaries of the Turkish Republic. However none of them has been as audacious, in other words overblown, as this one, which was prepared by Ralph Peters, a pensioner soldier and a qualified expert of the Middle East now.

Ralph Peters, the architect of the map, accepts the fact that no change in the map of the Middle East can be satisfying for any of the ethnic groups. Yet, Peters does not pull the rug from his companions. According to Peters, it is time Kurds, “the biggest nation without a state”, established a state of their own. But how and where it to be established? Peters has a formula to this question. He creates a great “Free Kurdistan” to the Southeast, which is as big as the two-thirds of Turkey and he accomplishes this by offering advantages to Kurdistan. Now, let’s examine the “than” and  “after” of the Middle East.

Free Kurdistan

The intimate neighbourhood policies of Turkey, Syria and Iran attract attention. They even make phone calls and visit one another oblivious of the USA. It is needless to say that this situation disturbs the USA. Therefore, there is one thing to do; playing both ends against the middle. The best way to achieve it is to create a “Free Kurdistan” expanding in a wide range of Iraq. Nevertheless, this area would not be enough for 30 million populations of Kurds and there must be some sacrifices from the neighbouring countries.

According to the plan, the biggest sacrifice comes from Turkey. Ralph Peters forms a boundary within a territory, which begins from Karadeniz including Artvin, Erzurum, Bingöl, Diyarbakır and Şanlıurfa. There is no need mentioning that this territory compasses Turkey’s biggest centers such as Ardahan, Kars, Ağrı, Van, Hakkari and Mardin. Finally, after the contributions of Syria and Iran to this newly established state, Kurdistan appears as the biggest and the strongest country of the region.

Apparently, all these plans must have been done considering that Turkey, Syria and Iraq will gladly react to this land-sharing. Otherwise, the only thing we can think of is that Peters does not have a grain of knowlegde about the military powers and the nationalist movements of these countries.  It seems that, Peters believes that these 3 countries will give their most important territories to the Kurds.

Pro-Western Kurdistan

According to Peters’ scenario: the east side of Turkey will belong to Kurds and there won’t be any war in Turkey. Thus, the new genocide stories will not be generated for the Turks who just try to defend themselves; Syria will give its most precious water sources, Euphrates and Tigris, to this newly established peace-partisan country and Ahmedinejad will stop nuclear researches while North Iran is being divided between Kurds and Azeris. And everybody will be happy forever? Unless there is a great motivation, the situation must be in this way for such a map. Peters explains this motivation in his article in Armed Forces Journal: “A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.”

Nowadays, there is not anyone talking about the land integrity of Iraq on which Turkey insisted and the USA provided security at the beginning of the war. Now, “the New Middle East” is in the agenda and there is no place for Iraq in his new order. Peters, who defines Iraq as a Frankenstein’s monster of a state sewn together from ill-fitting parts, asserts that the state must be divided into three immediately. Since the first division begins with the Kurds in the Northern Iraq, the other two parts must be shared between the Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims. That’s why they are divided as “Sunni Iraq” and “Arab Shia State”. As for Baghdad, it is declared as a self-governed “city state”.

The Sunni triangle in the northwest of Baghdad compasses the cities of Falluja, Tikrit, Samarra, Bakuba and Ramadi, where the severe clashes take place. These territories, which are the remnants of Iraq, are expected to unite with Syria in the future. Since Syria renounce its Mediterranean coast completely in order to establish a free state for Kurds and expand the Lebanon coast, it would like to include the Sunni tirangle in its territories, as well. I don’t know why, but it seems the perception of the architects of this map on “repaying kindness” is ridiculous.

As for Shias… It is Iranians’ and Saudi Arabians’ turn to make a sacrifice once again. According to this plan, Arab Shia State will be established upon one of the most precious coasts of the Gulf of Basra, being seperated from Kuwait and Qatar, and Iran will give up its most important harbour, Boushehr, on which the Iran’s biggest nuclear station is established. Besides, the royal family of Saudi Arabia should divest itself of the oil right and grant it to the Shias to make this plan become true.

Let’s assume it as probable and look at the situation in the west of Saudi Arabia. Ralph Peters does not in favour of Saudi Arabia to govern the Islamic Sacred States; Mecca and Medina.

Islamic Vatican

Peters bring forward a solution and founds the Muslim super-Vatican in the region. This new constitution in the name of “Islamic Sacred State” will be a self-governed state managed by the leaders of Muslim countries in rotating-shifts. According to Peters, the Islamic Sacred State will serve for the glorification of the Islamic religion and acquire the oil sources in the Red Sea of Saudi Arabia.

Thus, Saudi Arabia, which will have a little part with the extension of Yemen in south and with the expansion of Jordan to a Greater Jordan in the Northwest, will be ineffective both in the Arab world and in the rest of the world. According to the plan, the intermediary lands will be entitled as “Saudi Homelands Independent Territories”. It is certain that, in this case Saudi Kingdom will make deals with the comrades on the other side of the ocean.

Free Baluchistan

As far as the map is concerned, it is deduced that, Iran will be one the countries that suffer the most from the changes in the map. As well as Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan and Arab Shia State, the Balucs, who live on the boundaries of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, will establish a state in the south. The Balucs, the majority of which is composed of Hanifis, Sunnis and Zikris, will be given a territory as big as two thirds of Turkey in the name of “Free Baluchistan”.

There are various Baluc tribes in these three countries and they have clashes especially with Iranian army at times. The Balucs, who revolt against in order to establish a state of their own, have a militant group named; Cundallah (the army of Allah). Cundallah is also remembered with the Al Kaide operations. However, the Balucs are known with their different characters in each country. They try to attract attention by supporting Sunnis in Shia Iraq and Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. On the other hand, while they are expressing their need for a state to the west, they often give Kurds as an example. Peters’ defence for this change in the boundaries is the unification of these tribes, which belong to the same ethnic origin.

The sacrifices of Iran are finally awarded in its land sharing with Afghanistan. A portion of land including Herat is given to Iran and the Afghanistan’s loss of territory is compensated with the lands from Pakistan, the new boundaries of which are identified as “a return to the natural boundary”. Therefore, Pakistan has only half the amount of its actual boundaries.

Many experts of the Middle East evaluate “the new Middle East” project as an “imaginery” and no one but Turkey takes this project seriously and makes comments on it. However, it is as least to appreciate their imagination.

The forgetten point

Whatever is said, the most accurate point is that Israel must turn back to its boundaries in 1967 in order to live in peace and welfare. Just the same, Peters, who dashes the Middle East map into pieces and make it up in favor of the ethnic groups, cannot bring a solution to the actual problem of the Middle East; Israel-Palestine issue. Because of that the neccesity of the foundation of an independent Palestine is not mentioned, and the status of West Bank could not be determined.

This is the explanation of “the New Middle East” on which Condoleeza Rice, the foreign minister of the US, stressed. Luckily, this project is the dream of the USA and the nightmares will have nothing to do with us. Still, we cannot help thinking the forthcoming freak when we close our eyes.