The Middle East Is Being Carved Up And People Still Call Me “Pessimistic”.

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People sometimes accuse me of being too pessimistic about the fate of our region. They say I exaggerate, that I’m emotional, that I see catastrophe where others see “opportunity.” But you don’t need pessimism to recognize what’s collapsing around us. You only need to look, to remember, and to be honest. What has been happening for decades is a deliberate engineering of fragmentation across the Middle East, carried out by powers whose fingerprints are everywhere.

My anger is not blind. It comes from watching the place I love being carved up into zones of influence, foreign military bases, intelligence corridors, and sectarian enclaves, while so many people remain either confused, indifferent, or tragically complicit. The tragedy is not only the destruction of states, but the normalization of that destruction by the very societies targeted. There is nothing “pessimistic” about describing reality.

Before Syria was torn apart, and even during the early years of the war, I advocated a model of regional federalism, not the colonial version imposed through Sykes-Picot borders, but a framework of economic integration and sovereign cooperation. I believed, and still believe, that the region could have advanced scientifically, industrially, and politically if its people chose unity over fragmentation. But instead of integration, the region was divided into ever-smaller identities, each one manipulated by a different foreign patron. Syria fractured. Lebanon collapsed. Iraq stumbled. Palestine shattered. Yemen bled. Jordan trembles on the edge. And through all this, some still insist that anyone ringing the alarm is merely being dramatic.

The strategic loss of Syria remains perhaps the most consequential event in the modern history of the Middle East. This was not merely another defeat like those of 1967 or the incomplete triumph of 1973. Syria was the last sovereign Arab state with an independent geopolitical compass and a capable national army. It was the final barrier to unrestrained Israeli expansionism and the only remaining Arab actor that could shape events beyond its borders. Once Syria was broken, the entire regional balance collapsed.

Today, Syria is split into pieces; American forces entrenching at Damascus Airport, Turkish troops occupying parts of the north, Israeli jets striking at will in the south, and a jihadist regime under Julani’s control that is now marketed as a “stabilizing partner” because he cooperates with Western intelligence. The state is suffocated by sanctions, surrounded by enemies, and internally fractured into desperate, exhausted communities. The fall of Syria did not weaken one country; it dismantled the architecture that allowed the region to resist colonial restructuring.

This is the “New Middle East” that Condoleezza Rice promised in 2006. At the time, people mocked the concept. Today, it exists exactly as designed. Gaza is enduring a level of destruction unprecedented in modern history, not only a genocide of people, but the murder of an entire society. Lebanon has effectively become a non-state, governed by international financial institutions and paralyzed by internal rivalry. Iraq remains fragile and penetrated from every direction. Jordan faces unprecedented pressure on its borders and internal cohesion. The Kurdish regions of Syria and Iraq function as forward operating zones for American interests. Across the region, intelligence agencies, foreign militaries, and multinational corporations govern more efficiently than elected officials.

What’s even more painful is how the broader regional front of states and communities that once coordinated politically has been psychologically broken. The structure still exists on paper, and its institutions still function, but the sense of collective purpose that once animated it has been deliberately eroded. Targeted killings, economic strangulation, sectarian engineering, and internal sabotage have all worked toward one objective: convincing ordinary people that any form of political self-determination is too costly, too exhausting, and too unrealistic to pursue.

We now live in a region where the majority has been conditioned into political sheephood. They mourn Gaza on Instagram but applaud their governments’ alliances with the same powers razing Gaza. They talk about “solidarity” but refuse to confront the leaders who fund the bombs. They claim to oppose foreign intervention, yet celebrate partition, occupation, and the collapse of their own states if it gives them thirty seconds of emotional satisfaction. Some Syrians literally cheered the destruction of their country, only to wake up years later wondering why everything hurts.

At the same time, many in Europe still believe that wars stay confined to “unstable regions.” They have convinced themselves that NATO’s escalation against Russia or the US–China confrontation will remain abstract, manageable, or symbolic. But the escalation is real, and eventually the consequences will come home. We don’t wish suffering on anyone—God knows we have endured more than enough—but Western publics refuse to recognize that their governments are engineering global catastrophe under the banner of “democracy” and “security.”

So, where does this leave us?

People say I’m pessimistic, but I’m only describing the trajectory already in motion. The region is heading toward deeper fragmentation, more foreign control, and further erosion of sovereignty. The Middle East is not entering a period of reconstruction or reconciliation; it is entering a stage of managed disorder designed to keep it weak for at least another century. But despair is not mandatory. What is required is not romanticism but clarity.

What comes next depends on whether people finally abandon illusions, confront the architects of their misery, and recover a sense of collective agency. Nothing will improve until the region decides that it deserves more than managed chaos — and refuses to live inside someone else’s blueprint.

—Kevork Almassian is a Syrian geopolitical analyst and the founder of Syriana Analysis.