ABSTRACT
Since its formation in the wake of the First World War, the contemporary Middle Eastern system based on territorial states has been under sustained assault. In past years, the foremost challenge to this system came from the doctrine of pan-Arabism [or qawmiya], which sought to ‘eliminate the traces of Western imperialism’ and unify the ‘Arab nation’, and the associated ideology of Greater Syria [or Surya al-Kubra], which stresses the territorial and historical indivisibility of most of the Fertile Crescent. Today, the leading challenge comes from Islamist notions of a single Muslim community [the umma]. Intellectuals and politicians, denouncing it as an artificial creation of Western imperialism at variance with Arabic yearnings for regional unity, have repeatedly urged its destruction. National leaders-from Gamal Abdel Nasser to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Saddam Hussein-have justified their interference in the affairs of other states by claiming to pursue that unity. Yet the system of territorial states has proven extremely resilient.
