{"id":63305,"date":"2015-09-07T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=63305"},"modified":"2015-09-07T08:22:42","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T07:22:42","slug":"plans-for-redrawing-the-middle-east-the-project-for-a-new-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/09\/plans-for-redrawing-the-middle-east-the-project-for-a-new-middle-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a \u201cNew Middle East\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"middle<\/a>4 Sep 2015 – This article first published by GR in November 2006 is of particular relevance\u00a0to an understanding of the ongoing process of destabilization and political fragmentation of Iraq, Syria and Yemen.<\/p>\n

\u201cHegemony is as old as Mankind\u2026\u201d<\/em>\u00a0-Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor<\/p>\n

The term \u201cNew Middle East\u201d was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv\u00a0by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the \u201cGreater Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

This shift in foreign policy phraseology coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in\u00a0the Eastern Mediterranean.\u00a0The term and conceptualization of the \u201cNew Middle East,\u201d was subsequently heralded by the U.S. Secretary of State and the Israeli Prime Minister at the height of\u00a0 the Anglo-American sponsored Israeli siege of Lebanon. Prime Minister Olmert and Secretary Rice had informed the international media that a project for a \u201cNew Middle East\u201d was being launched from Lebanon.<\/p>\n

This announcement was a confirmation of an Anglo-American-Israeli \u201cmilitary roadmap\u201d in the Middle East. This project, which has been in the\u00a0 planning stages for several years, consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The \u201cNew Middle East\u201d project was introduced publicly by Washington and Tel Aviv with the expectation that Lebanon would be the pressure point for realigning the whole Middle East and thereby unleashing the forces of \u201cconstructive chaos.\u201d This \u201cconstructive chaos\u201d \u2013which generates conditions of violence and warfare throughout the region\u2013 would in turn be used so that the United States, Britain, and Israel could redraw the map of the Middle East in accordance with their geo-strategic needs and objectives.<\/p>\n

New Middle East Map<\/strong><\/p>\n

Secretary Condoleezza Rice stated during a press conference that \u201c[w]hat we\u2019re seeing here [in regards to the destruction of Lebanon and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon], in a sense, is the growing\u2014the \u2018birth pangs\u2019\u2014of a \u2018New Middle East\u2019 and whatever we do we [meaning the United States] have to be certain that we\u2019re pushing forward to the New Middle East [and] not going back to the old one.\u201d1<\/a> Secretary Rice was immediately criticized for her statements both within Lebanon and internationally for expressing indifference to the suffering of\u00a0an entire nation, which was being bombed\u00a0 indiscriminately by the Israeli Air Force.<\/p>\n

The Anglo-American Military Roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice\u2019s speech on the \u201cNew Middle East\u201d had set the stage. The Israeli attacks on Lebanon \u2013which had been fully endorsed by Washington and London\u2013 have further compromised and validated the existence of the geo-strategic objectives of the United States, Britain, and Israel. According to Professor Mark Levine the \u201cneo-liberal globalizers and neo-conservatives, and ultimately the Bush Administration, would latch on to creative destruction as a way of describing the process by which they hoped to create their new world orders,\u201d and that \u201ccreative destruction [in] the United States was, in the words of neo-conservative philosopher and Bush adviser Michael Ledeen, \u2018an awesome revolutionary force\u2019 for (\u2026) creative destruction\u2026\u201d2<\/a><\/p>\n

Anglo-American occupied Iraq, particularly Iraqi Kurdistan, seems to be the preparatory ground for the balkanization (division) and finlandization (pacification) of the Middle East. Already the legislative framework, under the Iraqi Parliament and the name of Iraqi federalization, for the partition of Iraq into three portions is being drawn out. (See map below)<\/p>\n

Moreover, the Anglo-American military roadmap appears to be vying an entry into Central Asia via the Middle East. The Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are stepping stones for extending U.S. influence into the former Soviet Union and the ex-Soviet Republics of Central Asia. The Middle East is to some extent the southern tier of Central Asia. Central Asia in turn is also termed as \u201cRussia\u2019s Southern Tier\u201d or the Russian \u201cNear Abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Russian and Central Asian scholars, military planners, strategists, security advisors, economists, and politicians consider Central Asia (\u201cRussia\u2019s Southern Tier\u201d) to be the vulnerable and \u201csoft under-belly\u201d of the Russian Federation.3<\/a><\/p>\n

It should be noted that in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives<\/em>,<\/strong> Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National Security Advisor, alluded to the modern Middle East as a control lever of an area he, Brzezinski,\u00a0calls the Eurasian Balkans. The Eurasian Balkans consists of the Caucasus (Georgia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Armenia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) and to some extent both Iran and Turkey. Iran and Turkey both form the northernmost tiers of the Middle East (excluding the Caucasus4<\/a>) that edge into Europe and the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

The Map of the \u201cNew Middle East\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East.\u00a0This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the \u201cNew Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

MAP OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Note: This map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).<\/p><\/div>\n

Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO\u2019s Defense College\u00a0for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, has most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles.<\/p>\n

This map of the \u201cNew Middle East\u201d seems to be based on several other maps, including older maps of potential boundaries in the Middle East extending back to the era of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and World War I.\u00a0This map is showcased and presented as the brainchild of retired Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S. Army) Ralph Peters, who believes the redesigned borders contained in the map\u00a0will fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.<\/p>\n

The map of the \u201cNew Middle East\u201d was a key element in the retired Lieutenant-Colonel\u2019s book, Never Quit the Fight<\/em><\/strong>, <\/em>which was released to the public on July 10, 2006. This map of a redrawn Middle East was also published, under the title of Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look<\/em><\/strong>, in the U.S. military\u2019s Armed Forces Journal with commentary from Ralph Peters.5<\/a><\/p>\n

It should be noted that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon\u2019s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.<\/p>\n

It has been written that Ralph Peters\u2019 \u201cfour previous books on strategy have been highly influential in government and military circles,\u201d but one can be pardoned for asking if in fact quite the opposite could be taking place.\u00a0Could it be Lieutenant-Colonel Peters is revealing and putting forward what Washington D.C. and its strategic planners have anticipated for the Middle East?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The concept of a redrawn Middle East has been presented as a \u201chumanitarian\u201d and \u201crighteous\u201d arrangement that would benefit the people(s) of the Middle East and its peripheral regions. According to Ralph Peter\u2019s:<\/p>\n

International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference \u2014 often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa\u2019s borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East \u2014 to borrow from Churchill \u2014 generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.<\/p>\n

While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone \u2014 from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism \u2014 the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region\u2019s comprehensive failure isn\u2019t Islam, but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.<\/p>\n

Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant \u201ccheated\u201d population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia [Muslims], but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.<\/p>\n

Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.<\/p>\n

Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosphorus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools \u2014 short of war \u2014 for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East\u2019s \u201corganic\u201d frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected. 6<\/a>\u00a0 <\/strong>(emphasis added<\/em>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNecessary Pain\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Besides believing that there is \u201ccultural stagnation\u201d in the Middle East, it must be noted that Ralph Peters admits that his propositions are \u201cdraconian\u201d in nature, but he insists that they are necessary pains for the people of the Middle East. This view of necessary pain and suffering is in startling parallel to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice\u2019s belief that the devastation of Lebanon by the Israeli military was a necessary pain or \u201cbirth pang\u201d in order to create the \u201cNew Middle East\u201d that Washington,\u00a0London, and Tel Aviv envision.<\/p>\n

Moreover, it is worth noting that the subject of the Armenian Genocide is being politicized and stimulated in Europe to offend Turkey.7<\/a><\/p>\n

The overhaul, dismantlement, and reassembly of the nation-states of the Middle East have been packaged as a solution to the hostilities in the Middle East, but this is categorically misleading, false, and fictitious. The advocates of a \u201cNew Middle East\u201d and redrawn boundaries in the region avoid and fail to candidly depict the roots of the problems and conflicts in the contemporary Middle East.\u00a0What the media does not acknowledge is the fact that almost all major conflicts afflicting the Middle East are the consequence of overlapping Anglo-American-Israeli agendas.<\/p>\n

Many of the problems affecting the contemporary Middle East are the result of the deliberate aggravation of pre-existing regional tensions. Sectarian division, ethnic tension\u00a0and internal violence have been traditionally exploited by the United States and Britain in various parts of the\u00a0globe including Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Iraq is just one of many examples of the Anglo-American strategy of \u201cdivide and conquer.\u201d Other examples are Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Amongst the problems in the contemporary Middle East is the lack of genuine democracy which U.S. and British foreign policy has actually been deliberately obstructing.\u00a0 Western-style \u201cDemocracy\u201d has been a requirement only for those Middle Eastern states which do not conform to Washington\u2019s political demands. Invariably, it constitutes a pretext for confrontation. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are examples of undemocratic states that the United States has no problems with because they are firmly alligned within the Anglo-American orbit or sphere.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the United States has deliberately blocked or displaced genuine democratic movements in the Middle East from Iran in 1953 (where a U.S.\/U.K. sponsored coup was staged against the democratic government of Prime Minister Mossadegh) to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the Arab Sheikdoms, and Jordan where the Anglo-American alliance supports military control, absolutists, and dictators in one form or another. The latest example of this is Palestine.<\/p>\n

The Turkish Protest at NATO\u2019s Military College in Rome<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters\u2019 map of the \u201cNew Middle East\u201d has sparked angry reactions in Turkey.\u00a0According to Turkish press releases on September 15, 2006 the map of the \u201cNew Middle East\u201d was displayed in NATO\u2019s Military College in Rome, Italy. It was additionally reported that Turkish officers were immediately outraged by the presentation of a portioned and segmented Turkey.8<\/a> The map received some form of approval from the U.S. National War Academy before it was unveiled in front of NATO officers in Rome.<\/p>\n

The Turkish Chief of Staff, General Buyukanit, contacted the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and protested the event and the exhibition of the redrawn map of the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.9<\/a> Furthermore the Pentagon has gone out of its way to assure Turkey that the map does not reflect official U.S. policy and objectives in the region, but this seems to be conflicting with Anglo-American actions in the Middle East and NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Is there a Connection between Zbigniew Brzezinski\u2019s \u201cEurasian Balkans\u201d and the \u201cNew Middle East\u201d Project?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following are important excerpts and passages from former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski\u2019s book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives. <\/em><\/strong>Brzezinski also states that both Turkey and Iran, the two most powerful states of the \u201cEurasian Balkans,\u201d located on its southern tier, are \u201cpotentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts [balkanization],\u201d and that, \u201cIf either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable.\u201d<\/strong>10<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

It seems that a divided and balkanized Iraq would be the best means of accomplishing this. Taking what we know from the White House\u2019s own admissions; there is a belief that \u201ccreative destruction and chaos\u201d in the Middle East are beneficial assets to reshaping the Middle East, creating the \u201cNew Middle East,\u201d and furthering the Anglo-American roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia:<\/p>\n

In Europe, the Word \u201cBalkans\u201d conjures up images of ethnic conflicts and great-power regional rivalries. Eurasia, too, has its \u201cBalkans,\u201d but the Eurasian Balkans\u00a0are much larger, more populated, even more religiously and ethnically heterogenous. They are located within that large geographic oblong that demarcates the central zone of global instability (\u2026) that embraces portions of southeastern Europe, Central Asia and parts of South Asia [Pakistan, Kashmir, Western India], the Persian Gulf area, and the Middle East.
\n<\/strong>
\nThe Eurasian Balkans form the inner core of that large oblong (\u2026) they differ from its outer zone in one particularly significant way: they are a power vacuum.<\/strong> Although most of the states located in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East are also unstable, American power is that region\u2019s [meaning the Middle East\u2019s] ultimate arbiter. <\/strong>The unstable region in the outer zone is thus an area of single power hegemony and is tempered by that hegemony. In contrast, the Eurasian Balkans are truly reminiscent of the older, more familiar Balkans of southeastern Europe: not only are its political entities unstable but they tempt and invite the intrusion of more powerful neighbors, each of whom is determined to oppose the region\u2019s domination by another.<\/strong> It is this familiar combination of a power vacuum and power suction that justifies the appellation \u201cEurasian Balkans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The traditional Balkans represented a potential geopolitical prize in the struggle for European supremacy.<\/strong> The Eurasian Balkans, astride the inevitably emerging transportation network meant to link more directly Eurasia\u2019s richest and most industrious western and eastern extremities, are also geopolitically significant.<\/strong> Moreover, they are of importance from the standpoint of security<\/strong> and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0The world\u2019s energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East.<\/strong> The momentum of Asia\u2019s economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy, and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Access to that resource and sharing in its potential wealth represent objectives that stir national ambitions, motivate corporate interests, rekindle historical claims, revive imperial aspirations, and fuel international rivalries.<\/strong> The situation is made all the more volatile by the fact that the region is not only a power vacuum but is also internally unstable.<\/p>\n

(\u2026)<\/p>\n

The Eurasian Balkans include nine countries that one way or another fit the foregoing description, with two others as potential candidates. The nine are Kazakstan [alternative and official spelling of Kazakhstan] , Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia\u2014all of them formerly part of the defunct Soviet Union\u2014as well as Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The potential additions to the list are Turkey and Iran, both of them much more politically and economically viable, both active contestants for regional influence within the Eurasian Balkans, and thus both significant geo-strategic players in the region. At the same time, both are potentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts. If either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable, while efforts to restrain regional domination by Russia could even become futile. <\/strong>11<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong> (emphasis added)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Redrawing the Middle East<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Middle East, in some regards, is\u00a0a striking parallel to the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe\u00a0during the years leading up the First World War. In the wake of the the First World War the borders of the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe were\u00a0redrawn. This region experienced a period of upheaval,\u00a0violence and conflict, before and after World War I, which was the direct result of foreign economic interests and interference.<\/p>\n

The reasons behind the First World War are more sinister than the standard school-book explanation, the assassination of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo. Economic factors were the real motivation for the large-scale war in 1914.<\/p>\n

Norman Dodd, a former Wall Street banker and investigator for the U.S. Congress, who examined\u00a0 U.S. tax-exempt foundations, confirmed in a 1982 interview that those powerful individuals\u00a0who from behind the scenes controlled the finances, policies, and government of the United States had in fact also planned U.S. involvement in a war, which would contribute to entrenching their grip on power.<\/p>\n

The following testimonial is from the transcript of Norman Dodd\u2019s interview with G. Edward Griffin;<\/p>\n

We are now at the year 1908, which was the year that the Carnegie Foundation began operations.\u00a0 And, in that year, the trustees meeting, for the first time, raised a specific question, which they discussed throughout the balance of the year, in a very learned fashion.\u00a0 And the question is this:\u00a0 Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people?\u00a0 And they conclude that, no more effective means to that end is known to humanity, than war.\u00a0 So then, in 1909, they raise the second question, and discuss it, namely, how do we involve the United States in a war?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I doubt, at that time, if there was any subject more removed from the thinking of most of the people of this country [the United States], than its involvement in a war.\u00a0 There were intermittent shows [wars] in the Balkans, but I doubt very much if many people even knew where the Balkans were.\u00a0 And finally, they answer that question as follows:\u00a0 we must control the State Department.
\n<\/strong>
\nAnd then, that very naturally raises the question of how do we do that?\u00a0 They answer it by saying, we must take over and control the diplomatic machinery of this country and, finally, they resolve to aim at that as an objective.\u00a0 Then, time passes, and we are eventually in a war, which would be World War I.\u00a0 At that time, they record on their minutes a shocking report in which they dispatch to President Wilson a telegram cautioning him to see that the war does not end too quickly.\u00a0 And finally, of course, the war is over.
\n<\/strong>
\nAt that time, their interest shifts over to preventing what they call a reversion of life in the United States to what it was prior to 1914, when World War I broke out. (emphasis added)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The redrawing and partition of the Middle East from the Eastern Mediterranean shores of Lebanon and Syria\u00a0to Anatolia (Asia Minor),\u00a0Arabia,\u00a0the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian Plateau responds to broad economic, strategic and military objectives, which are part of a longstanding Anglo-American and Israeli agenda in the region.<\/p>\n

The Middle East has been conditioned by outside forces into a powder keg that is ready to explode with the right trigger, possibly the launching of Anglo-American and\/or Israeli air raids against Iran and Syria. A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel.<\/p>\n

NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan has been successfully divided, all but in name. Animosity has been inseminated in the Levant, where a Palestinian civil war is being nurtured and divisions in Lebanon agitated. The Eastern Mediterranean has been successfully militarized by NATO.\u00a0Syria and Iran continue to be demonized by the Western media, with a view to justifying a military agenda. In turn, the Western media has fed, on a daily basis,\u00a0incorrect and biased notions that the populations of Iraq cannot co-exist and that the conflict\u00a0is not a war of occupation but a \u201ccivil war\u201d\u00a0characterised by domestic strife between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.<\/p>\n

Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic. In fact, they are part of a carefully designed covert intelligence agenda.<\/p>\n

Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a \u201cdivide and conquer strategy\u201d which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.<\/p>\n

NOTES:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,\u00a0Special Briefing on the Travel to the Middle East and Europe of Secretary Condoleezza Rice (Press Conference, U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C., July 21, 2006).<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.state.gov\/secretary\/rm\/2006\/69331.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

2 Mark LeVine,\u00a0\u201cThe New Creative Destruction,\u201d Asia Times<\/em>, August 22, 2006.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.atimes.com\/atimes\/Middle_East\/HH22Ak01.html<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Andrej Kreutz, \u201cThe Geopolitics of post-Soviet Russia and the Middle East,\u201d Arab Studies Quarterly<\/em> (ASQ) (Washington, D.C.: Association of Arab-American University Graduates, January 2002).<\/p>\n

http:\/\/findarticles.com\/p\/articles\/mi_m2501\/is_1_24\/ai_93458168\/pg_1<\/a><\/p>\n

4 The Caucasus or Caucasia\u00a0can be considered as part of the Middle East or as a separate region<\/p>\n

5 Ralph Peters, \u201cBlood borders: How a better Middle East would look,\u201d Armed Forces Journal<\/em> (AFJ), June 2006.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.armedforcesjournal.com\/2006\/06\/1833899<\/a><\/p>\n

6 Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

7\u00a0Crispian Balmer, \u201cFrench MPs back Armenia genocide bill, Turkey angry, Reuters<\/em>, October 12, 2006; James McConalogue, \u201cFrench against Turks: Talking about Armenian Genocide,\u201d The Brussels Journal<\/em>, October 10, 2006.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.brusselsjournal.com\/node\/1585<\/a><\/p>\n

8 Suleyman Kurt, \u201cCarved-up Map of Turkey at NATO Prompts U.S. Apology,\u201d Zaman<\/em> (Turkey), September 29, 2006.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.zaman.com\/?bl=international&alt=&hn=36919<\/a><\/p>\n

9 Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

10 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives<\/em> (New York City: Basic Books, 1997).<\/p>\n

11 Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related Global Research articles on the March to War in the Middle East <\/strong><\/p>\n

US naval war games off the Iranian coastline: A provocation which could lead to War? 2006-10-24<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cCold War Shivers:\u201d War Preparations in the Middle East and Central Asia 2006-10-06<\/a><\/p>\n

The March to War: Naval build-up in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean 2006-10-01<\/a><\/p>\n

The March to War: Iran Preparing for US Air Attacks 2006-09-21<\/a><\/p>\n

The Next Phase of the Middle East War 2006-09-04<\/a><\/p>\n

Baluchistan and the Coming Iran War 2006-09-01<\/a><\/p>\n

British Troops Mobilizing on the Iranian Border 2006-08-30<\/a><\/p>\n

Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats 2006-08-24<\/a><\/p>\n

Beating the Drums of War: US Troop Build-up: Army & Marines authorize \u201cInvoluntary Conscription\u201d 2006-08-23<\/a><\/p>\n

Iranian War Games: Exercises, Tests, and Drills or Preparation and Mobilization for War? 2006-08-21<\/a><\/p>\n

Triple Alliance:\u201d The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon 2006-08-06\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil 2006-07-26\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Is the Bush Administration Planning a Nuclear Holocaust? 2006-02-22\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The Dangers of a Middle East Nuclear War 2006-02-17\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Nuclear War against Iran 2006-01-03\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Israeli Bombings could lead to Escalation of Middle East War 2006-07-15\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Iran: Next Target of US Military Aggression 2005-05-01\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran 2005-05-01<\/a><\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

An award-winning author and geopolitical analyst, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is the author of <\/em>The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book <\/em>The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa. He has also contributed to several other books ranging from cultural critique to international relations. He is a Sociologist and Research Associate at the <\/em>Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), a contributor at the <\/em>Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF), Moscow, and a member of the <\/em>Scientific Committee of Geopolitica, Italy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, <\/em>Global Research, 2015<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 globalresearch.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The term \u201cNew Middle East\u201d was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the \u201cGreater Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east-north-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}