Old Boundaries for a New State: The Creation of Iraq's Eastern Question
This paper chronicles critical chapters in the delimitation of Iraq's boundaries with Iran and Kuwait, paradoxically in the period preceding the Great War. For such territorial definition took place before the Iraqi state was even formed, yet it would create many of the strategic problems that Iraq has since faced with its two neighbors. Narrowing the Perso-Ottoman land frontier in the mid-19th century had been an Anglo-Russian project, though it was largely Britain's interests that proved conclusive in its final settlement in 1914. The discovery of oil in Persia in the first decade of the 20th century added a new dimension to settling the southern end of the frontier along the Shatt al-Arab river. Britain's interest in maintaining the Persian Gulf as a British lake in order to defend British India was the chief determinant of the contemporary territorial definition of Kuwait. In shaping these territorial limits and dealing with the Ottoman Empire, Britain could not have realized that it was essentially creating the explosive contemporary strategic issue of Iraqi access to the Persian Gulf. With hindsight, it seems that Britain bequeathed to the Iraqi state an eastern question of its own.
Position, Function, and Symbol: The Shatt al-Arab Dispute in Perspective
Even in those cases in which the existence of boundary disputes has contributed to the outbreak of conflict, there is no guarantee that unsatisfactory territorial definition will be addressed in its immediate aftermath. Iraq’s turbulent recent history is a good example. No one would doubt the diligence of the UN Iraq-Kuwait Boundary Demarcation Commission (UNIKBDC), which ultimately settled the boundary question in May 1993. Yet treatment of the Iraq-Kuwait boundary in United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 687 of April 3, 1991—which effectively set down the basis for the UNIKBDC operation—was hardly notable for its detail, far-sightedness, or sophistication. As more pressing issues of diffusing an international crisis understandably took priority, treatment of the boundary question was both obvious and minimal. Arguably, had a little more attention been devoted to the boundary in March 1991 in drafting UNSCR 687, the UN demarcation team might have been afforded more flexibility of operation, while the dynamics of regional relations in the northern Persian Gulf (hereafter abbreviated to the Gulf) might have been addressed more sensitively.
The Fixing of Boundaries in International Boundary Rivers
BOUNDARIES may be defined as the limits of a territory over which a State is entitled to exercise its exclusive sovereignty. Outside these limits another State generally exercises sovereignty over land territory. In order to prevent conflicts between border States a clear delimitation of their respective territories is essential. During the course of history there has been a tendency to consider natural obstacles as the pre-eminent boundaries between States. Chains of mountains and rivers often have been claimed