The Greater West Asia Co-Asperity Sphere

In an essay published shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Middle East analyst Fred Halliday wrote of a “new integrated West Asian crisis.” Over the preceding decade, he argued, formerly distinct conflicts in Palestine, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf region, Afghanistan, and Kashmir had become increasingly linked to one another. This integration had occurred both on the rhetorical level, as the protagonists of each West Asian conflict claimed common cause with the protagonists of others, and on the operational level, as free-floating activists and jihadists moved from one trouble spot to the next.1 The spectacular emergence of Osama bin Laden, who had come from Saudi Arabia, built bases in Sudan and Afghanistan, and politically exploited Muslim grievances over the Palestine issue and over economic sanctions against Iraq, vividly illustrated this phenomenon. My nine-year-old nephew made a similar point when he came home from school on 9/11 and reported that America had been attacked by “Pakistinians.”

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