In June 2006 at the height of the Anglo-American sponsored Israeli siege of Lebanon, the U.S. Secretary of State and the Israeli Prime Minister heralded the introduction and conceptualization of the term “New Middle East”, which was introduced by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East” -advocated earlier by the Bush administration. Indeed within the same month, Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters, a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy, drew an enlightening picture of this “New Middle East” and had it published in the Armed Forces Journal. The following map is his work, which was complemented with the sub title:
“Blood Borders: How a Better Middle East would Look”.
I think I will stick to the more traditional Eurocentric terminology- ‘the Middle East’, first published in September1902 in the National Review by Alfred Mahan, a United States Navy flag officer.
The Middle East is a territory covering 16 countries and states in northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia. The countries are: Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the West Bank/ Gaza Strip, and Yemen.
Impressive how I can hear you speaking while reading the post... ;)
ReplyDeleteMuch interesting work, I would love to read about your progress in it!
thanks marcel! its great to know someone is reading it :)
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see how the Middle East is actually defined. Some Lebanese don't consider themselves Arab and some Arabs don't consider Iranians Middle Eastern. Do you think the reason that the West and the rest of the world are confused is because people in the Middle East can't define it themselves?
ReplyDeleteyou raise a very good point which i have discussed in my paper, to answer the question briefly, it is far more complicated than that. of course your proposal is part of the problem, but the more one reads and understands middle eastern political history, it becomes more obvious that in fact the term "middle east" only plays the role of a geopolitical concept which makes it easier for the the rest of the world to set a frame around this area for a certain economical purpose. The fact is, the Lebanese have as much in common with Iranians as ,say, the English do with the Russians. In fact the only ties they can assume are a vast basis of religious ideal and common overall political turmoil. Do you think thats enough reason to bind people together and stick them with a label? Another issue is that, if this middle east concept were to be compared with the European Union, the difference is crystal clear. The european states benefit from each other economically, could one suppose this benefit is common to all Middle Eastern countries?
ReplyDeletewell... the article is very nice,
ReplyDeletei like this topic, i prefer it...
Its a wonderful discussion and i really like this informative blog. Keep sharing because we need this kind of information.
ReplyDeletedental marketing plans
thank you this is nice blog
ReplyDelete