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Greater Middle East

Loose political term introduced in the 2000s

Summary

Loose political term introduced in the 2000s

FieldValue
titleGreater Middle East
imageGreater Middle East (orthographic projection).svg
captionVariations on definitions of the Middle East and North Africa region
{{legend#346733Traditional definition of the Middle East<ref>{{Cite webtitleMiddle East History, Map, Countries, & Factsurl=https://www.britannica.com/place/Middle-Eastaccess-date=31 May 2021website=Encyclopedia Britannicalanguage=enarchive-date=7 September 2022archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220907171126/https://www.britannica.com/place/Middle-Easturl-status=live}}}}
{{legend#008000Greater Middle East (2004 U.S. Government paper)<ref namePerthes/}}
{{legend#73ED73Areas pundits sometimes associated with Middle East c. 2004<ref namePerthes/}}
countries{{Collapsible list
titlestyletext-align:left;font-weight:normal;
titleUN members (36) and UN observer (1)
* {{flagIslamic Emirate of AfghanistannameAfghanistan}}
titlestylebackground:transparent;text-align:left;font-weight:normal;
titleStates with limited recognition (5)
dependencies{{Collapsible list
titlestylebackground:transparent;text-align:left;font-weight:normal;
titleExternal (1)
titlestylebackground:transparent;text-align:left;font-weight:normal;
titleInternal (6)
titlestylebackground:transparent;text-align:left;font-weight:normal;
titleOccupied (5)
titlestylebackground:transparent;text-align:left;font-weight:normal;
titleUN buffers (2)
cities{{Collapsible list
titlestylebackground:transparent;text-align:left;font-weight:normal;
title8 largest cities in the Greater Middle East (2022)

| Core area | Middle East

  • Bahrain
  • Cyprus
  • Egypt
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Israel
  • Jordan
  • Kuwait
  • Lebanon
  • Oman
  • Palestine
  • Qatar
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Syria
  • Turkey
  • United Arab Emirates
  • Yemen | Marginal area | North Africa
  • Algeria
  • Libya
  • Morocco
  • Sudan
  • Tunisia | East Africa
  • Comoros
  • Djibouti
  • Somalia | South Asia
  • Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
  • Pakistan | West Africa
  • Mauritania | Peripheral area | Caucasus
  • Armenia
  • Azerbaijan
  • Georgia | Central Asia
  • Kazakhstan
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Tajikistan
  • Turkmenistan
  • Uzbekistan | Core area | Middle East
  • Northern Cyprus | Marginal area | East Africa
  • Somaliland | North Africa
  • Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic | Peripheral area | Caucasus
  • Abkhazia
  • South Ossetia | Core area | Middle East
  • Akrotiri and Dhekelia (United Kingdom) | Core area | Middle East
  • Kurdistan (Iraq)
  • Rojava (Syria) | Peripheral area | Caucasus
  • Adjara (Georgia)
  • Nakhchivan (Azerbaijan) | Central Asia
  • Gorno-Badakhshan (Tajikistan)
  • Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan) | Core area | Middle East
  • Palestine East Jerusalem
  • Gaza Strip
  • Syria Golan Heights
  • West Bank | Marginal area | North Africa
  • Western Sahara | Core area | Middle East
  • United Nations UNBZC
  • United Nations UNDOF Zone |
  1. Egypt Cairo
  2. Turkey Istanbul
  3. Iran Tehran
  4. Saudi Arabia Riyadh
  5. Iraq Baghdad
  6. Sudan Khartoum
  7. Egypt Alexandria
  8. Turkey Ankara

The Greater Middle East is a geopolitical term introduced in March 2004 in a paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as part of the United States' preparatory work for the Group of Eight summit of June 2004. The paper presented a proposal for sweeping change in the way the West deals with the Middle East and North Africa. It also denotes a vaguely defined region encompassing the Arab world, along with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Cyprus, and sometimes the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Adam Garfinkle of the Foreign Policy Research Institute defined the Greater Middle East as the MENA region together with the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The future of the Greater Middle East has sometimes been referred to as the "new Middle East", first so by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who presented the second-term Bush administration's vision for the region's future in June 2006 in Dubai. Rice said it would be achieved through "constructive chaos", a phrase she repeated a few weeks later during a joint press conference with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert when the 2006 Lebanon War had broken out; the meaning of this phrase and the Bush administration's vision have been much debated since. The efforts to achieve this new Middle East are sometimes called "The Great Middle East Project".

Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski stated that a "political awakening" is taking place in this region which may be an indicator of the multipolar world that is now developing. He alluded to the Greater Middle East as the "Global Balkans", and as a control lever on an area he refers to as Eurasia. According to Andrew Bacevich's 2016 book America's War for the Greater Middle East, this region is the theater for a series of conflicts dating back to 1980, which heralded the start of the Iran–Iraq War.

References

References

  1. "Middle East {{!}} History, Map, Countries, & Facts".
  2. "World City Populations 2022".
  3. Perthes, V., 2004, [http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol11/0409_perthes.asp America's "Greater Middle East" and Europe: Key Issues for Dialogue] {{webarchive. link. (15 November 2008, ''[[Middle East Policy]]'', Volume XI, No.3, Pages 85–97.)
  4. link. (8 July 2018, Policy Brief, ''Carnegie Endowment for International Peace'', 29, Pages 1–7)
  5. "The Greater Middle East Initiative".
  6. Stewart, Dona J.. (2005). "The Greater Middle East and Reform in the Bush Administration's Ideological Imagination". Geographical Review.
  7. Garfinkle, Adam. (1 December 1999). "The Greater Middle East 2025". [[Foreign Policy Research Institute]].
  8. Kamal, Baher. (14 December 2015). "Silence, Please! A New Middle East Is in the Making".
  9. (July 2016). "A Myth of Peace: 'The Vision of the New Middle East' and Its Transformations in the Israeli Political and Public Spheres". [[Journal of Peace Research]].
  10. Jumana Al Tamimi. (10 August 2013). "The 'New Middle East' and its 'constructive chaos'". Gulf News.
  11. ""Great Middle East Project" Conference by Prof. Dr. Mahir Kaynak and Ast.Prof. Dr. Emin Gürses in SAU".
  12. "Turkish Emek Political Parties".
  13. Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives" Cited in (Nazemroaya, 2006).
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

2004-neologisms 2000s-neologisms eurocentrism political-theories middle-east geographical-neologisms geography-of-the-middle-east
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