[Nettime-bold] (Fwd) The 'New Empire' Considers Re-Partitioning Arabia

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

The partitioning worked well in the Balkans. "Yugoslavia" was also 
a young creation - never existent before the 20th century, and rich 
in history of ethno-religious conflict. It was easily divided and 
conquered. Unlike the Middle East, former Yugoslavia was both 
more developed in the Western sense of that word and its 
population was generally pro-Western (under a motto: "better a well 
governed colony, than a badly run independent state"). So, the plan 
may not work as well in the Middle East, but it can sure be 
adapted, and the West will obviously do anything to secure 
unhindered access to the oil fields. Divide et impera!
ivo
ps yesterday I watched Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine - it 
is a must see for any peace activist

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date sent:      	Wed, 13 Nov 2002 09:34:13 -0500
To:             	CERJ@igc.org
From:           	CERJ@igc.org
Subject:        	The 'New Empire' Considers Re-Partitioning Arabia

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID
=2610

A New Age of Empire 
 
by Sasha Lilley 
November 10, 2002  

British Member of Parliament George Galloway says that a plan for 
the division of the Middle East is circulating in the corridors of 
power on both sides of the Atlantic.

In a recent interview, Galloway asserted that ministers and eminent figures in the British governme
nt are deliberating the partition of the Middle East, harking back to the colonial map-making in th
e first quarter of the 20th century that established the modern nation-states of the region.  An 
Anglo-American war against Iraq, he tells me, could be the opening salvo in the break up of the reg
ion.

Galloway, who met with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad this August, states that the war aims of the US an
d Britain go well beyond replacing the Iraqi leader.  "They include a recasting of the entire Middl
e East, the better to ensure the hegemony of the big powers over the natural resources of the 
Middle East and the safety and security of the vanguard of imperialist interests in the area -- the
 state of Israel.  And part of that is actually redrawing boundaries."

Galloway is privy to such information -- he is the Vice-Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party 
Foreign Affairs Committee, with close relations to Britain's Ministry of Defense.  Galloway says th
at British ministers and former ministers are primarily focusing upon the break-up of Saudi Arabia 
and Iraq in the wake of an attack against Saddam Hussein, but are also discussing the possible part
ition of Egypt, the Sudan, Syria and Lebanon.  These officials have become taken with the realizati
on that the borders of the Middle East are recent creations, dating back only to World War I when B
ritain and France divided the region between themselves.  Galloway adds, "There are many ways in wh
ich a new Sykes-Picot dispensation could be drawn up in the Middle East to guarantee another few de
cades of big power hegemony over the area."

The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, codified by the League of Nations in 1920, parceled out between 
Britain and France the crumbling Ottoman Empire which had extended over much of the Middle East.  B
y the early 1920s Britain, which as the reigning imperial power already effectively ruled Egypt, th
e Sudan, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar, made off with the 'lion's share'.  This divvying up of the region 
by imperial powers led to the creation of the states of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, among othe
rs.  Under the aegis of Britain, the modern state of Saudi Arabia emerged in the late 1920s, absorb
ing the hitherto separate eastern, central and western regions -- including the holy sites of Mecca
 and Medina -- of what constitutes the country today.

The partition of the Middle East was partially driven by the oil conglomerates of the time.  Britai
n pushed through the interests of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (British Petroleum's predecessor) a
nd Royal Dutch Shell, over American oil companies Exxon and Mobil by means of the colonial mandate 
it had established following WW I.  Jockeying over oil resulted in an Anglo-French agreement giving
 Britain the northern Iraqi province of Mosul.  This led to Iraq's modern boundaries, formed in 192
1 when Britain combined the three Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, which were predomi
nantly Kurdish, Sunni and Shi'a Muslim respectively.

Today British and American petroleum interests dominate the scene once more, although Britain is re
duced to the role of junior partner.  The United States and Britain are home to the four biggest pe
troleum producers in the world -- Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, British Petroleum-Amoco and Royal Du
tch-Shell -- with the French-Italian TotalElfFina following in fifth place.  While a massive upheav
al in the Middle East would hurt oil revenues initially, over the long term a new constellation of 
power there could safeguard the interests of the petroleum conglomerates from the present instabili
ty of the region.  While the US government has been considering alternate sources of oil in the Cas
pian Sea area, Russia and Africa, analysts admit that none of these compare to the known riches of 
the Persian Gulf.

Not surprisingly then, if hawks on both sides of the Atlantic have their way, Saudi Arabia would be
 at the core of a hegemonically reshaped Middle East.  Saudi Arabia alone contains a quarter of the
 world's petroleum reserves and is one of the only countries able to increase production to meet ri
sing demand for oil, expected to grow by fifty percent in the next two decades.  Yet Saudi Arabia i
s no longer seen by the US and UK governments as a trustworthy ally, and certainly not one upon whi
ch they can afford to be so dependent, given the kingdom's internal vulnerability and its sponsorsh
ip of Islamic fundamentalist insurgents (Saudi nationals comprised fifteen of the nineteen Septembe
r 11, 2001 hijackers) -- even though such patronage had been coordinated by the United States in ea
rlier, happier times.

"I think the United States in particular has lost confidence in the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, 
so far as their interests are concerned", Galloway maintains.  "They realize that the radicalizatio
n of the Saudi Arabian population has proceeded at very great pace and has reached very great depth
s, particularly amongst young people."  The United States and Britain are fearful that the unreliab
le House of Saud will be overthrown and that the new anti-American rulers will shut off the flow of
 oil.  "The United States is afraid that one day they'll wake up and a Khomeini type -- or be it Wa
hhabi Sunni Khomeini -- revolution would have occurred, and they would have lost everything in the 
country."  The British Foreign Office has warned that dissent, bubbling up from a dissatisfied popu
lation that sympathizes with Osama bin Laden and seethes at the pro-American stance of the ruling e
lite

"Saudi Arabia could easily be two if not three countries", Galloway says, summarizing the neo-imper
ialist position discussed in British government circles, "which would have the helpful bonus of avo
iding foreign forces having to occupy the holiest places in Islam, when they're only interested rea
lly in oil wells in the eastern part of the country."  According to him, the US troops based throug
hout Saudi Arabia could be withdrawn from the areas containing Mecca and Medina, the most hallowed 
sites in the Islamic world, where US military presence is a source of great resentment for many Sau
dis.

Instead, the soldiers would occupy only the Eastern Province of the country, which borders on the P
ersian Gulf and is inhabited by Saudi Arabia's Shi'a minority.  This area contains the major oil fi
elds, including the largest oil field in the world, Ghawar, as well as the industrial centers of th
e kingdom.  "The theorists of this idea have fastened on to the fact that a very substantial propor
tion of the population in the Eastern Province, where the oil is, are Shi'ite Muslims with no parti
cular affection for the ruling Wahhabi clique who form the House of Saud."  Galloway adds that for 
the first time, leaders in the West are becoming concerned with the human rights of the Shi'a popul
ation, which "now that they coincide with Western interests, are moving up the agenda."

In the United States, those in interlocking circles around the Bush administration have been callin
g for the dismemberment of Saudi Arabia.  This past July, an analyst from the US government-funded 
Rand Corporation presented a briefing in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's private conference room title
d "Taking Saudi Out of Arabia", which advised the assembled luminaries of the Pentagon's Defense Po
licy Board that the US government should demand Saudi Arabia stop supporting hostile fundamentalist
 movements and curtail the airing of anti-US and anti-Israel statements, or its oil fields and fina
ncial assets would be seized.  A month later Max Singer, co-founder of the right-wing US think tank
 the Hudson Institute, gave a presentation to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, in which he 
counseled the US government to forge a "Muslim Republic of East Arabia" out of the Eastern Province
 of 
ffilia
ted with the American and British governments, could start the process of remolding the region and 
end in the replacement of Saddam Hussein with a Hashemite king in Iraq, extending eastward the reig
n of the monarchy of longtime US ally Jordan.  The cousin of late King Hussein of Jordan ruled Iraq
 until 1958 when he was killed in a military coup.  Hawks such as Michael Rubin, who in October joi
ned the Pentagon as their expert on Iraq and Iran, have encouraged the reinstatement of the monarch
y.  Writing in the London Daily Telegraph, Rubin applauded the attendance of Prince Hassan of Jorda
n, the brother of the King Hussein, at a meeting of the motley Iraqi opposition in London -- along 
with Pentagon and members of Vice President Cheney's staff - this past July, where Hassan indicated
 that he could head the new regime.

The hawks believe, furthermore, that the overthrow of the Iraqi government would lead to a "domino 
effect" in the rest of the region.  A war against Iraq could provide the opportunity for excising t
he presumed sources of malignancy in the region: the Syrian and Lebanese governments, the Palestini
an Authority, the Iranian theocracy, and pro-American but unstable regimes like Mubarak's Egypt.  A
 reformulated Middle East would oust the troublemakers -- regardless of whether or not they were or
iginally created and supported by the West -- and leave the region turning on the axis of US client
 states Israel, Turkey, Jordan and a recolonized Iraq.

Britain's preeminent conservative magazine, The Spectator, succinctly puts the newly found virtues 
of instability.  "When Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, warns the BBC that a US in
vasion of Iraq would 'threaten the whole stability of the Middle East', he's missing the point: tha
t's the reason it's such a great idea.  Suppose we buy into Moussa's pitch and place stability over
 all other considerations.  We get another 25 years of the Ayatollahs, another 35 years of the PLO 
and Hamas, another 40 years of the Ba'athists in Syria and Iraq, another 80 years of Saudi Wahhabis
m.  It's the 'stability' of the cesspit."

The populations of Iran, Syria, Egypt and beyond presumably would be so emboldened by the example o
f a "democratic Iraq" that they would rise against their own despotic rulers, leading to pro-Americ
an regimes throughout the Middle East.  Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has made apparen
t his hopes for sweeping changes in the Middle East resulting from a war against Iraq, stating that
 an American-imposed regime in Iraq would, "cast a very large shadow, starting with Syria and Iran,
 but across the whole Arab world".  However, another sort of domino effect would probably be more l
ikely, in which radical anti-American protesters move to overthrow their governments and the US int
ervenes to prevent the emergence of such hostile regimes.  The US long ago granted itself permissio
n to intervene in Saudi Arabia if the House of Saud were threatened by internal revolt, and this co
uld 

If the United States and Britain mounted a war against Iraq, Syria, which the US accuses of sponsor
ing terrorism, might not last the tumult.  The Pentagon's Rubin wrote in March in a publication of 
the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "The Bashir al-Assad government in Syria should interpret 
the US decision -- not only to attack al-Qaeda, but also to target their Taliban hosts -- as an ind
ication that Washington will hold Damascus responsible for the deaths of any American citizens at t
he hands of groups hosted by the Syrian government."

Current Undersecretary of Policy at the Department of Defense Douglas Feith, preceding his appointm
ent to the Pentagon's number three position, along with other hawks including Richard Perle, wrote 
'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm', which laid out a broad neo-conservative age
nda for the Middle East.  In it he advised the Israeli government to "work closely with Turkey and 
Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats," including attack
ing Lebanon and Syria.

An attack on Iraq could give the Israeli Right an opportunity it would welcome to settle scores wit
h its neighboring -- and domestic -- opponents.  "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in co
operation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria", wrote Fei
th, Perle, et al.  "[If Saddam's Iraq were overthrown] Damascus fears that the 'natural axis' with 
Israel on one side, central Iraq and Turkey on the other, and Jordan, in the center would squeeze a
nd detach Syria from the Saudi Peninsula.  For Syria, this could be the prelude to a redrawing of t
he map of the Middle East which would threaten Syria's territorial integrity."  Syria's client stat
e Lebanon, long the battleground for external conflicts, could again face a military assault by Isr
ael.  Most ominously, under the cover of a war on Iraq, Israel could once and for all settle the "P
ales
 advoc
ating.

Lastly, a potential consequence of a US ouster of the Iraqi government could be that it would leave
 the Shi'a theocracy in Iran with too much regional weight in the eyes of the neo-conservatives -- 
setting the stage for a replacement of that regime.  Iran is paired with Iraq in constituting two p
rongs of the State Department's Manichean "axis of evil", and stands accused of sponsoring terroris
m throughout the Middle East.  In keeping with the royalist thrust of neo-con thinking, the Iranian
 clerics could be replaced by the monarchial rule of the son of the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, who
 has been waiting in the wings in suburban Virginia.

The threat of partition or region-wide "regime change" accompanying a war against Iraq has not been
 lost on the governments and peoples of the Middle East.  Syrian officials are concerned not only t
hat a war could provide the pretext for an invasion of Syria and Lebanon, but also that if an attac
k results in the breakup of Iraq along Kurdish, Shi'a and Sunni lines, the threat of secessionist m
ovements could imperil Syria's own territorial unity, given the similarity of its ethnic compositio
n to Iraq.  Likewise, the Iranian government is concerned about larger US hegemonic designs beyond 
Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Many in the Middle East see the United State's role in the partition settlem
ent of Sudan -- the US has bankrolled the Christian rebels in the oil-rich south against the Islami
c government based in Sudan's north -- as foreshadowing a larger re-mapping of the region.

Whether the imperialist strategem of the neo-conservatives comes to pass remains to be seen.  What 
is apparent, however, is that the potential for such a cynical adventure to go wrong would be quite
 high.  Colonial undertakings have a tendency to not work out as expected, even if the fantasies of
 draftsmen in the Pentagon and Britain's Whitehall are implemented through "native" proxies such as
 the Iraqi National Congress or an expanded Hashemite monarchy.  This is especially the case when t
he populations of the areas to be shaped, rather than viewing the US as deliverers of a pipedream o
f "democracy," are intensely hostile to the imperial designs of the West.

Sasha Lilley is an independent producer and correspondent for Free Speech Radio News.

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