For a Redrawn Middle East

Ralph Peters from the Armed Forces Journal is making the case for a Middle East with borders that follow cultural/religious boundaries instead of the current borders that were made by the European empires of the 19th Century.

Now this would make for an interesting debate. Does a peaceful Middle East require redrawn territories? Or can we attain peace in the region in despite the current configuration?

This would also be a pretty complicated debate. How do you draw the borders? How can you make sure that every country in the region is satisfied? How do you deal with Israel?

On one hand, you have the Squiggly border theory, an NBER study done by a couple of Harvard economists that basically states that the more squiggly the borders, the better chances for growth while the less squiggly the borders, the more worse off the state is. This stems from the idea that straight borders indicate a state that was artificially determined (most of the time from some invading colonial/imperial power) whereas squiggly borders indicate a state that was more naturally determined. The straight bordered countries are worse off because the state was created without consideration of cultural, religious and/or ethnic conflicts within the region.

On the other hand, you have the example of Yugoslavia, proving that peace and development might not necessarily be accomplished by a state formed by ethnicity.

Then again, this is the Middle East, so who knows?