An update to this story; the original article from the Armed Forces Journal, with full-sized maps, is available here.
While the proposal is fascinating, and creates new states, such as a Free Kurdistan, which would be a thorn in the side of countries such as Turkey, Iran, and a drastically shrunken Sunni Iraq, Peters' arguments are situated on the slippery slope of post-colonial guilt:
International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference -- often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.
The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East -- to borrow from Churchill -- generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.
While Peters notes that "the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone," and that, "of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy," he completely overlooks the ideological underpinnings of the conflicts in the Middle East, and their roots in the Qur'an, ahadith, and Sunnah, presenting them as largely nationalistic struggle.
Still, the "before" and "after" maps remain useful as a springboard for speculation and further discussion.
I think the maps are just about right. The fact is that the current borders in the M-E can be compared with those of European nations in the period before the first and second world war.
Many different ethnic minorities living in almost every country in the region. Creating vast amounts of tension and hate. This situation has ceased to exist and now peace is with Europe for almost 70 years.
The same could happen with the M-E when they accept the fact that Israel exists and will not go away and stop the senseless anti-semitism that engulfs the Arab privileged class, media en the Arab John Doe. And ofcourse, divide their nations in a different way.
But I am propably being naive right now.
maybe they ahould do like Stalin did in Eastern Europe after WW ll. He moved all those pesky minorities around like chess pieces, or cattle, so his new satellite countries could have a solid national base.