Feuding Arabs Help America 'Remap' the Middle East (Al Ayyam, Palestinian Territories)
"A Greater Middle East is only 'greater' because it
includes the entire region and implicates a large number of states in the scheme
of 'creative chaos.' The 'new' Middle East is only new, because it creates new
alliances and new conditions that allow a deepening and expansion of American
control over its resources. ... All Arabs - those who seek change and those who
oppose it, rivals of the new regimes and the old, need to open their eyes wide
and see what's going on around them."
In 2006, retired United States Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters penned one of the most quoted and controversial articles of the decade: Blood Borders: How a Better
Middle East Would Look.
Day
by day, the mystery that has enveloped America's decade-long notion of a "Greater Middle East,"
and more recently, that of "creative chaos," has gradually lifted,
although intent and true dimensions have yet to be fully revealed. Setting
aside suspicion and conspiracy theories, in assessing events across the Arab
region since late 2010 and the dawn of the Jasmine Revolution, we can now
see various foreign hands, particularly American, that have engaged in
forms of intervention into domestic and intra-Arab conflicts.
To
begin with, one must acknowledge that domestically, the situation in most Arab
countries had become sufficiently mature to spark popular movements with the aim
of restoring freedom, dignity, and independence, as well as social justice. It
was therefore domestic issues that dictated the ways and means of toppling
authoritarian regimes. Only rarely, however, were these domestic issues decisive
in achieving the goal. These processes were hastened by the early intervention of
the U.S. and its Western allies, as commensurate with their interests,
to ensure the achievement of their objectives through active involvement in the
creation of alternate regimes.
While
the masses have toiled to overcome barriers of fear and authoritarian
oppression to set up systems that carry out reform and open the way to freedom,
dignity and social justice, America and its allies have sought to replace loyal
regimes with ones that are even more loyal, particularly to the cause of American-Israeli
strategic interests.
Even setting aside its pouring of fuel onto the flames ravaging Arab society, America's role in this "creative chaos" is all too obvious, often thanks to the comments of American officials themselves. The
exhaustion of Arab societies, the destruction of their infrastructures, right
down to the disintegration of state structures, are certainly due in part to what
we know are American objectives.
The
foremost of these objectives fall within the context and meaning of the "Greater"
or the "new" Middle East, relating to the tearing apart, Sykes-Picot
style, of Arab geo-political
units. A Greater Middle East is only "greater" because it includes
the entire region and implicates a large number of states in the scheme of creative
chaos. The "new" Middle East is only "new," because it creates new
alliances and new conditions that allow a deepening and expansion of American
control over its resources.
The New York
Times
on Sunday published
a map [above] showing the partitioning of five Arab states into fourteen
new mini-states, describing
the modern Middle East as a "political and economic pivot in the
international order," which it says "is in tatters."
On
September 28, Robin Wright, an analyst at the newspaper, published this vision for
the division, in which Syria is split into three units, Saudi Arabia into five,
Libya into two or three, then there is Iraq, Sudan and Yemen.
The
Maan News Agency quotes Wright as saying that
the remapping would be a strategic game changer for all, and is likely to lead
to "reconfigured alliances, security challenges, trade and energy flows for
much of the world."
It's
clear why Egypt isn't included on Wright's New
York Times map: it was published after the second popular revolution of
June 30, a movement that at least for Egypt, has slowed progress for the
partition scheme. The World Tribune Internet
site reported
that former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh Shelton, said
that the Obama Administration is working to destabilize Egypt and Bahrain.
The
Tribune, in a dispatch originally carried by the
Sama News Agency, reports that Shelton admitted that
Egypt has succeeded in foiling Obama's 2013 campaign, noting that it was Egypt
Defense Minister Abdul Fatah Sisi who detected the plot.
Shelton reportedly said that had President Morsi not
been deposed, Egypt would have become another Syria, and Egypt's Army would have
been completely destroyed.
Apart
from plots, maps, statements and confessions, events on the ground confirm the
direction. Everyone is aware of the division of Sudan and the potential for yet
further divisions there and attempts being made to divide Yemen into north and south.
Everyone knows where things are headed in Libya, which is at risk of breaking
up into three mini-states: Fazzan, Burqa and Tripoli. And we all know what's going on in Iraq,
and of course, the suffering of the Syrian state. So a majority of Arab countries
are being confronted with wither miniaturizing partitions or self-destruction.
Second,
these divisive and destructive schemes serve the security strategy of Israel. They
serve the valuable service of opening doors, not only to the confiscation of
Palestinian and Arab rights, but to the realization of Israel's expansionist ambitions
in the region by ensuring an absence of a force capable enough to confront it.
The
third objective is to bring about a resolution of the Palestinian issue that
does not lead to the creation of a Palestinian state on land occupied in 1967,
but as part of a wider regional resolution, which leading Arab commentator Mohamed HassaneinHeikal has
repeatedly warned against. Putting aside Israeli assertions and Egyptian
claims, the scheme for a wider resolution is to create a Palestinian state that
accepts Palestinian refugees on a Gaza Strip that stretches into the Sinai.
The failure of this scheme, however, does not leave Israel without alternatives,
none of which include the creation of a Palestinian state on territory occupied
in 1967.
The
fourth objective is to grant legitimacy to Israel's murderous activity, including
its continuing to massacre Palestinians without having to worry about the condemnation
of the international community. In the period leading up to the Arab protest
movement, Israel committed a massacre against the population of the Gaza Strip in
which over 1,500 people lost their lives, and more than 5,000 were injured. All
of this occurred without Israel receiving the punishment it deserved. Now, if
Arabs in their struggle for change are paying dearly with dozens or even
hundreds of thousands of lives, as is the case in Libya and Syria, how will
Israel conduct itself in the face of its Palestinian and Arab foes?
All
Arabs - those who seek change and those who oppose it, rivals of the new
regimes and the old, need to open their eyes wide and see what's going on
around them. All must be God-fearing in their actions, which affect their
countries and people. All must concede that the path to real change is one that
meets the aspiration of the oppressed masses for freedom, dignity, and social
justice, and they must desist from self-destruction that serves no purpose other
than the pursuit of vengeance to the benefit of American-Israeli schemes.
