International Boundaries and Borderlands in the Middle East: Balancing Context, Exceptionalism and Representation

ABSTRACT

Renewed academic interest in the Middle Eastern border is inevitable with the marked increase in fortified territorial limits across the region and the appearance of new borderland spatialities in the sovereign margins of the war-torn Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni states. If the consequent spectacle of displaced populations confronting state power at the international boundary seems a defining image, this article concentrates on two other dominant, less publicised but still relevant border representations from the recent past: territorial definition and its deterministic association with conflict in the northern Gulf and the resource-driven finalisation of the peninsula’s territorial framework. This follows consideration of the significance of the borderland in the region. The author reflects back here on a long record of research into these issues and argues that all of these contexts must be acknowledged in any balanced appraisal of the Middle Eastern border. The article comments on the challenge of extending regional approaches to the study of borders and – on the centenary of the infamous 1916 Sykes-Picot treaty – acknowledges that the Middle East region’s experience of international boundaries continues to be depicted as exceptional. Unsurprisingly, it will conclude that there is no one typical Middle Eastern border.

Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of this article were delivered at a public lecture delivered at the London School of Economics in February 2015 and plenary addresses delivered at the following conferences: Borders at the Interface: Bordering Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, 7-11 December 2014; Frontieres au Moyen Orient: Colloque International, Cercle de Chercheurs du Moyen Orient, Paris, 12 October 2015. My thanks go out to David Newman and Daniel Meier for inviting me to speak at these events.

Acknowledgements are also extended to the Office of the Geographer at the US Department of State, and I.B. Tauris for permitting the re-publication of maps originally included in previous publications penned by this author.

Notes

^1. N. De Genova, ‘Border, Seen and Obscene’, in T. Wilson and D. Hastings (eds.), A Companion to Border Studies (Oxford: Blackwell 2012) pp. 492–504.

^2. J. Goodhand, ‘War, Peace and the Places in Between: Why Borderlands are Central’, in M. Pugh, N. Cooper, and M. Turner (eds.), Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2008).

^3. Predictably, there have been a good number of recent books issued that look back to the Middle East during the First World War in this very context, including, for instance: J. Barr, A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East (London: Simon and Schuster 2011); K. Ulrichsen, The First World War and the Middle East (London: Hurst 2014); E. Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914–1920 (New York: Basic Books 2015).

^4. Such concerns were addressed fully and imaginatively in the lavish 2-part al Jazeera World documentary, ‘Sykes-Picot: Lines in the Sand’, that was broadcast extensively during May-June 2016: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_eEB27fj8s>.

^5. For example, International Affairs has just devoted a special issue to ‘Contentious Borders: The Middle East and North Africa post-2011’, 93/4 (2017). This includes a concluding paper by W. Zartman entitled: ‘State, Borders and Sovereignty in the Middle East: Unsteady but Unchanging’, pp. 938–48.

^6. BRISMES call for papers, July 2017 for BRISMES 2018 annual conference on New Approaches to Studying the Middle East, King’s College London.

^7. BRISMES (note 6).

^8. De Genova (note 1).

^9. R. Hassner and J. Wittenberg, ‘Barriers to Entry: Who Builds Fortified Boundaries and Why?’, International Security 40/1 (2015) pp. 157–90.

^10. Comments in a panel session entitled ‘Whatever Happened to our Borderless World?/The Future of Borders in 2017’, London International Boundary Conference, 5 June 2017, King’s College London.

^11. J.R.V. Prescott, ‘Borders in a “Borderless” World’, Geopolitics 4/2 (1999) pp. 262–73; N. Megoran, ‘Rethinking the Study of International Boundaries: A Biography of the Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Boundary’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 102/2 (2012) pp. 464–81.

^12. S. Jones, Boundary-Making: A Handbook for Statesmen, Treaty-Editors and Boundary Commissioners (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 1945).

^13. For example: G. Blake and R. Schofield (eds.), Boundaries and State Territory in the Middle East and North Africa (Wisbech: Menas Press 1987); C. Schofield and R. Schofield (eds.), The Middle East and North Africa: World Boundaries Volume Two (London: Routledge 1994); I. Brandell (ed.), State Frontiers: Borders and Boundaries in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris 2006).

^14. J. Peterson, ‘The Arabian Peninsula in Modern Times: A Historiographical Survey of Recent Publications’, Journal of Arabian Studies 4/2 (2014) pp. 244–74.

^15. J. Kelly, Eastern Arabian Frontiers (London: Faber and Faber 1964); J. Wilkinson, Arabia’s Frontiers: The Story of Britain’s Boundary-Drawing in the Desert (London: I.B. Tauris 1991); R. Schofield, ‘Borders and Territoriality in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula during the Twentieth Century’, in R. Schofield (ed.), Territorial Foundations of the Gulf States (London: UCL Press 1994/Routledge 2016) pp. 1–77; G. Okruhlik and P. Conge, ‘The Politics of Border Disputes: On the Arabian Peninsula, International Journal 54/2 (1999) pp. 230–48; J. Peterson, ‘Sovereignty and Boundaries in the Gulf States’, in M. Kamrava (ed.), International Politics in the Persian Gulf (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press 2011) pp. 21–49.

^16. Many relevant holdings have been published by Cambridge Archive Editions: For example, see R. Schofield and G. Blake (eds.), Arabian Boundaries: Primary Documents, 1853–1957 (Farnham Common: Archive Editions 1988); R. Schofield and E. Evans (eds.), Arabian Boundaries, New Documents, 1966–1975 [18 volumes] (Cambridge: Cambridge Archive Editions [CUP] 2009).

^17. A.-L. Amilhat-Szary and F. Giraut (eds.), Borderities and the Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2015).

^18. R. Schofield, ‘Back to the Barrier Function: Where Next for International and Boundary Disputes in Political Geography?’, Geography 100/3 (2015) pp. 133–43.

^19. De Genova (note 1).

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^22. For example: G. Bowman, ‘Israel’s Wall and the Logic of Encystations: Sovereign Exception or Wild Sovereignty’, Focaal 50 (2007) pp. 127–35. See also the many publications of David Newman, including: D. Newman and A. Paasi, `Fences and Neighbours in the Post-Modern World: Boundary Narratives in Political Geography’, Progress in Human Geography 22/2 (1998) pp. 186–207.

^23. See the work of Oren Yiftachel, for instance, including Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2006).

^24. Schofield (note 18) p. 136.

^25. Ibid.

^26. L. O’Dowd, ‘From a “Borderless World” to a “World of Borders”: Bringing History Back In’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28/6 (2010) pp. 1031–50.

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^32. Schofield (note 18) p. 137.

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^36. Wilkinson (note 15); Kelly (note 15).

^37. M. Hudson (ed.), The Middle East Dilemma: The Politics and Economics of Arab Integration (New York: Columbia University Press 1999).

^38. Schofield (note 35) p. 135.

^39. R. Hay, ‘The Persian Gulf States and their Boundary Problems’, Middle East Journal 93 (1956) pp. 433–45.

^40. F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (London: Fontana 1981 [4^th. impression of original 1966 work]) p. 176.

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^44. A. Drysdale and G. Blake, The Middle East and North Africa: A Political Geography (New York: Oxford University Press 1985) p. 149.

^45. R. Schofield, ‘Border Disputes in the Gulf: Past, Present and Future’, in G. Sick and L. Potter (eds.), The Persian Gulf at the Millennium (New York: St. Martin’s Press 1997) pp. 127–65.

^46. Wilkinson (note 15) p. iv.

^47. R. Schofield, ‘Down to the Usual Suspects: Border and Territorial Disputes in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf at the Millennium’, in J. Kechichian (ed.), Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States (New York: Palgrave 2001) pp. 220–23.

^48. R. Schofield, Kuwait and Iraq: Historical Claims and Territorial Disputes (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs 1993 [2nd edition]), Ch. 7 – ‘The United Nations and its ‘Final’ Settlement of the Kuwait-Iraq Boundary, 1991–1993’, pp. 150–98.

^49. See <http://time.com/4327377/sykes-picot-the-centenary-of-a-deal-that-did-not-shape-the-middle-east/>, 13 May 2016.

^50. J. Hurewitz, ‘Preface’, in P. Toye (ed.), Palestine Boundaries, 1833–1947 (Farnham Common: Archive Editions 1989) p. vii.

^51. J. Hurewitz (ed.), Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record (New York: Van Nostrand 1956) pp. 10–22.

^52. ‘Report of the Committee on Asiatic Turkey’, 30 June 2015, in R. Schofield (ed.), Arabian Boundary Disputes (Farnham Common: Archive Editions 1992) pp. 3–48.

^53. R. Schofield, ‘Borders, Regions and Time: Defining the Iraqi Territorial State’, in R. Visser and G. Stansfield (eds.), An Iraq of its Regions (London: Hurst 2007) pp. 167–204.

^54. Dror Zeevi, ‘Was It All Arbitrary? Drawing the Borders of the Middle East after WW1’, Borders at the Interface: Bordering Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, 7–11 December 2014.

^55. Memorandum by Mr. Balfour respecting Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia dated August 11, 1919, in Schofield (note 52) pp. 460–64.

^56. ‘Recommendations of the King-Crane Commission on Syria and Palestine’, 28 August 1919 in Hurewitz (note 51) pp. 66–74.

^57. Schofield (note 52) p. 355.

^58. D. Rumley and J. Minghi (eds.), The Geography of Border Landscapes (London: Routledge 1991); J. House, Frontier on the Rio Grande: A Political Geography of Development and Social Deprivation (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1982).

^59. O. Martinez, ‘The Dynamics of Border Interaction: New Approaches in Border Analysis’ in C. Schofield (ed.), Global Boundaries: World Boundaries Volume 1 (London: Routledge 1994) pp. 1–15.

^60. Schofield (note 18) p. 136.

^61. P. Readman, C. Radding and C. Bryant (eds.), Borderlands in World History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2014); R. Schofield, C. Schofield and C. Grundy-Warr, Contested Border Geographies: Boundaries, Maps and Geopolitics (London: I.B. Tauris forthcoming).

^62. R. Schofield, ‘Narrowing the Frontier: Mid Nineteenth-Century Efforts to Delimit and Map the Perso-Ottoman Boundary’ in R. Farmanfarmaian (ed.), War and Peace in Qajar Persia (London: Routledge 2008) p. 150.

^63. R. Matthee, ‘The Safavid-Ottoman Frontier; Iraq-i Arab as seen by the Safavids’, International Journal of Turkish Studies 9/1-2 (2003) p. 165.

^64. Hubbard (note 43) p. 3.

^65. Schofield (note 62).

^66. R. Schofield, ‘Laying It Down in Stone: Delimiting and Demarcating Iraq’s Boundaries by Mixed International Commission’, Journal of Historical Geography 24, pp. 397–421.

^67. F. Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804–1906 (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1999); S. Ates, The Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands: Making a Boundary, 1843–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2014); R. Schofield (ed.), The Iran-Iraq Border, 1840–1958 (Farnham Common: Archive Editions 1989).

^68. Schofield (note 62) p. 149.

^69. R. Schofield, ‘International Boundaries in the Northern Gulf: Taking Us Back to 1975’, Orients Strategiques 4 (Les Frontieres dans le Monde Arabe: Quel enjeux de pouvoirs aux marges des Etats) (2016) pp. 61–75.

^70. For Iran-Iraq boundary and territorial disputes, see R. Schofield, Evolution of the Shatt al Arab Boundary Dispute (Wisbech: Menas Press 1986) and K. Kaikobad, The Shatt al-Arab Boundary Question: A Legal Reappraisal (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1988). For Iraq-Kuwait, see Schofield (note 48); D. Finnie, Shifting Lines in the Sand: Kuwait’s Elusive Frontier with Iraq (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1992); H. Rahman, The Making of the Gulf War: Origins of Kuwait’s Long-standing Territorial Dispute with Iraq (Reading: Ithaca Press 1997).

^71. R. Schofield, ‘Introduction to 1975’, in R. Schofield (note 16) pp. v–xii.

^72. Schofield (note 45); M. Pinther, ‘Demarcation of the Iraq-Kuwait Boundary’, in H. Srebro (ed.), International Boundary Making (Copenhagen: International Federation of Surveyors 2013) pp. 94–117.

^73. Schofield (note 69).

^74. Despatch dated 25 March 1975 from J. Graham, Baghdad to the FCO in Schofield (note 16) p. xii.

^75. R. Schofield, ‘Position, Function and Symbol: The Shatt al Arab Dispute in Perspective’, in L. Potter and G. Sick (eds.), Iran, Iraq and the Legacies of War (New York: Palgrave 2004) pp. 29–70; F. Sharifi-Yazdi, Arab-Iranian Rivalry in the Persian Gulf: Territorial Disputes and the Balance of Power in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris 2014).

^76. Reuters, 29 June 2011.

^77. Schofield (notes 45 and 47).

^78. Schofield (notes 45 and 47).

^79. R. Detalle (ed.), Tensions in Arabia: The Saudi-Yemeni Fault Line (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft 2000); R. Schofield, ‘The Last Missing Fence in the Desert: The Saudi-Yemeni Boundary’, Geopolitics 1/3 (1996) pp. 247–99.

^80. F. Al Maghafi, ‘More than Just a Boundary Dispute: The Regional Geopolitics of Saudi-Yemeni Relations’, PhD, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (in 3 volumes).

^81. Schofield (note 47) pp. 214–16; A. Al-Enazy, Long Road from Taif to Jeddah (Abu Dhabi: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research 2005).

^82. D. Rigoulet-Roze, ‘La Frontiere Saoudo-Yemenite: Une Conflictualite Renouvelee’, Orient Strategique 4 (2016) pp. 47–60.

^83. R. Schofield, ‘The Crystallisation of a Complex Territorial Dispute: Britain and the Saudi-Abu Dhabi Borderland, 1966–71’, Journal of Arabian Studies 1/1 (2011) pp. 27–51.

^84. Schofield (note 16) pp. v–xv.

^85. R. Schofield (note 79) pp. 15–51.

^86. K. al Mezaini, ‘Post UAE-Oman Border Disputes: Social and Economic Implications’, Boundaries and Territory in the Gulf Region, 2013 Gulf Research Meeting, University of Cambridge, July 2013; M. Valeri, ‘One nation, Two Countries: Physical Demarcation and Nation-Building in a UAE-Oman Border Town’ (see article in this issue).

^87. Schofield (note 18) p. 140.

^88. Schofield (note 48) p. 34.