The root causes of many conflicts and wars in the Middle East and south Asia are because of arbitrary colonial boundaries.

The globalization has undermined the artificial colonial states boundaries.  The capacities of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and to some degree Iran to control political loyalties of their citizens have been eroded and challenged by the popular nationalist ethnic consciousness waking to legitimate claims of self-determination and an old religious sectarian divides.

These states cannot control their citizens to turning to nationalism, religion, tribal and traditional to promote their political objectives and secure their identities within states and beyond the states boundaries.

Because some nations like Baluch, Kurd, Pushtun are divided between three or more states. The irony is that none of these Nations have accepted these so called international boundaries. No one can sustains these states unless one willing to allow ethnics, religious genocide in a mass scale.

The states borders are not real if the majorities of the people who are trapped within a state or outsides the state do not believes on them.  Sovereignty has lost its meaning, all of the above states either violated each other’s sovereignties or the states sovereignties ignored by their citizens. We are witnessing the demised of states and states boundaries imposed by the European on the Middle East and part of south Asia.

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan do not have a monopoly of the weapons of war and their use and soles rights to tax their citizens. The Iranian has blurred the citizens rights and duties. There are Iraqis Shiite who have been serving as ministers in Iran, Pakistani Shiite as judges, Afghan Shiite Hazara and Uzbek as revolutionary Guard commanders at the same time the Iranian Baluch, Sunni educated elites are denied the basic right of the citizenships.

Iran and Iraq are resources rich countries, Lebanon, Syria are not poor countries in the world but including Pakistan and Afghanistan they have many things in common that the dominant ethnic group cannot overcome, their insecurity created by globalisation and modernity and all of them are failed states.

The root causes of many conflicts and wars in the Middle East and south Asia are because of arbitrary colonial boundaries. If the international community is concerned with eradicating the curse of terrorism, they should not neglect the rights of statehood to the trapped nations in these failed and unpredictable states. Preserving the status-quo and sustaining the power of satisfied groups with vested interests, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan is not an option any more.  Iran is created by the victor of war from which they stood to gain the power in Baluchistan.

The balances of powers have collapsed in the Middle East and south Asia. We believe that the self-determination and statehood should be available to the Baluch, Kurd, Pushtun and others. The secret diplomacy should be abolished and replaced by public consent. The legitimacy of monopoly of violence by a state should be abolished and violence shouldn’t be an instrument of statecraft.

M. Sarjov is a Baluch political activist based in London.