GeoCurrents » Ralph Peters

Saudi-Iranian Tensions and Shia Islam in Saudi Arabia

Martin W. Lewis — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:21:57 +0000

After the United States accused Iran of hatching an elaborate and ill-conceived plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, a number of commentators expressed incredulity, some wondering why the Saudi diplomat would be so targeted. The most common response to such questioning was to outline the history of Saudi-Iranian regional rivalry

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Support for the Baloch Insurgency: Right-wing or Left-wing?

Martin W. Lewis — Wed, 18 May 2011 21:45:07 +0000

A recent (May 14) discussion thread in GeoCurrents takes on the one-dimensional left/right political spectrum. Jim Wilson perceptively notes that he “always like[s] watching political commentators trying to decide whether those who want to roll back the reforms of Deng Xiaoping are the right wing or the left wing of the Chinese Communist Party.” Another

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Ralph Peters: Thinking the Unthinkable?

Martin W. Lewis — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:07:00 +0000

Ralph Peters’s “Blood Borders: How a Better Middle East Would Look” is more than a troubling and provocative work. The article and the controversies surrounding it illustrate the central paradox of contemporary geopolitical discourse: as malformed as existing borders may be, mere talk about changing them can be harmful. Peters prods us to “think the

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Blood Borders and Their Discontents

Martin W. Lewis — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:49:00 +0000

In 2006, Armed Forces Journal published a short, map-illustrated article by retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, novelist, and pundit Ralph Peters. In “Blood Borders: How a Better Middle East Would Look,” Peters argued that “unjust borders” drawn by “self-interested Europeans” were generating many of the Middle East’s problems. Changing state boundaries to reflect the “organic

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