(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
Summary of Discussion
Discussant: Mildred Berman
In contrast to some areas we have talked about, the __
Middle East is relatively small in terms of total popu-
lation. It contains some 300 million people—-only
about 6 percent of the world’s population—-although it
certainly takes up a disproportionate share of the
headlines.
This is an area with a long cultural history. Three of
the world’s most influential religions have come from
here. It has been an area of the first domestication of
crops, first settlement, first cities, and so on.
In addition, this is a place through which tribes as well
as empires have moved, changed, and reinvented
themselves. This means, then, that the areal extent of
the region keeps shifting like the sands. We have
heard the area called the Near East, the Hither East,
and Southwest Asia. The terms Near East and Hither
East included the Balkans because they were part of
the Ottoman Empire. Today, the term Middle East is
common, but during World War II the Middle East
Command went as far south as Kenya.
One of the terms that geographers and anthropologists
use when discussing this region is “mosaic.” It is a
very poetic term and appropriate because of the won-
derful mosaic floors left by the Romans and the
mosaic work on the mosques throughout much ofthe
area. But a mosaic implies symmetry, and, as you have
just heard from Professor Mikesell, the intense variety
of people here is not very symmetrical. In talking
about mosaics, I recently read something very inter-
esting. After Jerusalem was retaken by the Saracens
under Saladin in the 12th century, many tiles of the
Dome of the Rock had to be replaced because they
had begun to fall off. The people who put the tiles
back were not Muslim artisans, but Armenian Chris-
tians; one of the great monuments in the Muslim
world was repaired by laborers from another religion.
I would like to comment on two of the issues that Pro-
fessor Mikesell addressed: the Kurdish situation and
Lebanon. t
The outlook for Kurds achieving a state is grim. Pro-
fessor Mikesell says it is impossible, and maybe it is.
But in this region we can never say never, as evi-
denced by the recent gasp-provoking handshake
between PLO Chief Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister
Rabin on the lawn of the White House. In the past,
some outside assistance has gone to the Kurds in an
effort to destabilize the regime in Iraq. During the
1970s, for instance, Israel and the United States sent
in arms to shore up the Kurdish cause, but, as we all
know, this did not work. Since the Persian Gulf war,
there has been a fair amount of pressure brought to
bear on Turkey in the hope that it might promote some
Kurdish autonomy in the area, but this does not seem
to be working. The tragedy is that, with so many other
things going on in this part of the world, the Kurdish
cause is definitely on the back bumer.
Regarding Lebanon, that country—a very unsuccess-
ful experiment as Professor Mikesell has so rightly
described—was programmed for failure from the
beginning. The separation of Lebanon from Syria
overlooked the fact that members of the country’s
17 individual sects had loyalties not only to their reli-
gious groups but also to tribes and villages as well.
This has continued until the present time. Lebanon
then has had no real political control over its many
peoples.
The country began to unravel in the 1970s with the
establishment of individual fiefdoms and, again, with
the PLO ministate, which was destroyed by the 1982
incursion of the Israel Defense Forces. Today, the
infrastructure in Beirut and Southern Lebanon is in
shambles. It is uncertain whether the country will ever
reemerge as a banking center, tourist attraction, or an
air transport hub.
The Syrian presence remains a real danger;
there are 40,000 Syrian troops in the country, and they
show no sign of moving. The Christians are very
much concemed about what may happen if the Syri-
ans move to annex Lebanon. They fear that this will
be bad for them, and many Muslims in the area also
fear the repressiveness of the Syrian regime.
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268