{"id":9766,"date":"2006-11-06T11:13:44","date_gmt":"2006-11-06T18:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/11\/06\/if-i-were-king-of-the-world-and-wore-a-shiny-hat.html"},"modified":"2006-11-06T11:13:44","modified_gmt":"2006-11-06T18:13:44","slug":"if_i_were_king_of_the_wor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/06\/if_i_were_king_of_the_wor.html","title":{"rendered":"“If I were king of the world and wore a shiny hat …”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n

An interesting article in the Armed Forces Journal, speculating on how the borders of the Middle East could be redrawn<\/a> to (possibly) make stuff a less bloody mess.<\/p>\n

\n

In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism \u2014 in some cases, both. Of course, if we could wave a magic wand and amend the borders under discussion, we would certainly prefer to do so selectively. Yet, studying the revised map, in contrast to the map illustrating today’s boundaries, offers some sense of the great wrongs borders drawn by Frenchmen and Englishmen in the 20th century did to a region struggling to emerge from the humiliations and defeats
\nof the 19th century. <\/p>\n

Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time \u2014 and the inevitable attendant bloodshed \u2014 new and natural borders will emerge. Babylon has fallen more than once. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Larger map here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

As an exercise in how the borders of the Middle East were well mangled by Europeans, it’s interesting\/amusing enough. I used to play with maps that way, too. As a realistic vision, there’s a greater chance that I’ll be appointed Pope and Grand Mufti and get to wear a shiny hat. Too few folks with an interest in “giving up” anything, and there’s a long-term (and sometimes counter-productive) tendency in the diplomatic community to consider borders inviolate and cast in stone.<\/p>\n

But I also reject the knee-jerk “Like can only hang out with Like” mentality behind something like this. Tribalism is a reality, but it’s not an inevitability. One of the long-term disasters in Europe post-WWI was the imposition of unions that could only be maintained by strong-men — Tito in Yugoslavia, the USSR, etc. — and the conflicts that were too easily stirred up once unification-by-force faltered (especially since such force was usually on behalf of one group or another). Heck, it can
\nbe seen elsewhere in Europe, with the de-centralization and autonomization of various regions, from Catalan to Scotland.<\/p>\n

But unification can come from common interests, and the realization that a larger, more populous, more diverse state is stronger in the world scene than a smaller, more insular, more limited one. That’s been one of the great challenges (and possible failures) of the whole Iraq War — getting the Kurds and Sunni and Shiite Arabs to see themselves as a nation with common interest, rather than as smaller groupings at odds with everyone else in a zero-sum game. I refuse to agree that the only way toward
\npeace and stability is by dividing people up into groups — “You kids sit over there, and you kids sit over there.” The history of the world shows that model is not, in the long term, stable either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting article in the Armed Forces Journal, speculating on how the borders of the Middle East could be redrawn to (possibly) make stuff a less bloody mess. In…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38760,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/12\/on-the-drawing-of-borders.html","url_meta":{"origin":9766,"position":0},"title":"On the Drawing of Borders","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Sep-13 4:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting article (h\/t +Yonatan Zunger) on the role of \"Imperial Power\"-inscribed borders as the basis for conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, etc. \u00a0It's a theory I've heard so often it's almost taken as a given, but the article does a good job of noting that trying to draw\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3108,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/08\/08\/borders.html","url_meta":{"origin":9766,"position":1},"title":"Borders","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Aug-02 12:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"From space, there are no borders. No big dotted lines crisscross the landscape when you look down at it from orbit. No differently-colored tracts of land designate where one political...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130006,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/the-rise-again-of-the-city-state-4.html","url_meta":{"origin":9766,"position":2},"title":"The rise (again) of the City-State","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Mar-16 2:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Some interesting speculation here on the weakening of national borders, the reversal of flight from the city, and the rise of the city as a political unit. It's very much a European perspective, I think, but interesting both for that and for the population trends noted. The City States of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21166,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/09\/bryan-fischer-is-a-dolt-run-for-the-border-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":9766,"position":3},"title":"Bryan Fischer is a Dolt (Run for the Border Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 9-Jun-11 10:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey, Bryan \u00a0Let's talk about ... borders. I realize you have a crying need for order in your world -- no icky Muslims, no swishy gays, no atheist secular humanist liberals, nothing to disturb your pleasant, ordered, White American Christianist view of the universe. But life is tough. \u00a0Things keep\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dolts"","block_context":{"text":"Dolts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/dolts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1069,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/20\/piracy_and_para.html","url_meta":{"origin":9766,"position":4},"title":"Piracy and Parasites","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 20-Oct-01 7:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"Piracy and Parasites Parallels between piracy two centuries ago and terrorism today. The key is breaking state sponsorship, and a sense that it's okay and profitable and useful to have...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131240,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/11\/im-the-map-im-the-map-im-the-map.html","url_meta":{"origin":9766,"position":5},"title":""I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map!"","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 11-Aug-16 12:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Political maps are, by definition, political constructs. Expecting them to reflect (let alone define) objective reality about names, borders, disputed areas, etc., is futile, because those things are not objectively real, but consensually and politically agreed upon. Where that agreement is lacking, what's a map maker to do? 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