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under the rule of locally chosen leaders whom the Europeans knew
they could trust. It is possible that the current transformations might
result in security vacuums that local parties or foreign powers could
exploit to fragment some Arab states into smaller units that would
then be more reliant on foreign support or protection.
Sudan has already split into northern and southern states, while
Yemen, Iraq and possibly a few others are similarly susceptible to
subdivision into smaller statelets. This raises difficult issues about the
inviolability of the current Arab borders that the retreating Europeans
created last century. I thought the secession of South Sudan was a
perfectly acceptable development, if it reflected the will of the people
of the south, and was not imposed on them. The operative principle
in such possible developments is whether change reflects the consent
of the governed and represents the will of the majority, while
protecting the rights of minorities. If Yemenis decide to split again
into two or even three states, and this reflects the free will of the
Yemeni people, they should be allowed to do so without external
interference.
There is nothing sacred or permanent about the borders of any
country, especially Arab countries that were mostly created by the
handiwork of European colonial officers. Countries evolve and
sometimes change shape as a routine historical process. If some
Arabs decide they are uncomfortable with their existing state
boundaries and they wish to break away and form a separate country,
that should always be an option. After all, the world mostly rejoiced
when the former Soviet Union and its empire collapsed and some of
its constituent republics fragmented into smaller units, notably
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.
We should be prepared to deal with the specter of existing Arab
countries that reconfigure their frontiers and populations while they
are reconfiguring their political governance systems.

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