Middle East - what is happening today.

Near East or Middle East.

An oil rich region but problematic area. The Near East Countries where the Far East countries hanging tightly economically for the oil and the Suez Canal passage to Europe and the West.

The earliest civilizations in history were established in this region now known as the Middle East around 3500 BC, in Mesopotamia (Iraq), widely regarded as the cradle of civilization. The Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians all flourished in this region. Soon after the Sumerian civilization began, the Nile River valley of ancient Egypt was unified under the Pharaohs in the 4th millennium BC, and civilization quickly spread through the Fertile Crescent to the west coast of the Mediterranean Sea and throughout the Levant. The Phoenicians, Israelites and others later built important states in this region.

This region had been in shamble since 1948 when the British settled the Jews back to so call “Israel”. The 1967 War, Libya revolution, Iran Islamic Revolution, Iran/ Iraq war, Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Sadam invaded Kuwait, the Desert Storm, War on Terror on Afghanistan, US invasion of Iraq etc etc. All these arise due to oil, direct involvement of US in Israel, presence of US and involving with the Middle East affairs.

These regions were once colonized; the British, the French, and the Soviets departed many parts of the Middle East during and after World War II. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East states on the Arabian Peninsula generally remained unaffected by World War II. However, after the war, the following Middle states had independence restored or became independent:

• 17 October 1941 – Iran (forces of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union withdrawn)
• 22 November 1943 – Lebanon
• 1 January 1944 – Syria
• 22 May 1946 – Jordan (British mandate ended)
• 1947 – Iraq (forces of the United Kingdom withdrawn)
• 1947 – Egypt (forces of the United Kingdom withdrawn to the Suez Canal area)

The struggle between the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine culminated in the 1947 United Nations plan to partition Palestine. This plan attempted to create an Arab state and a Jewish state in the narrow space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. While the Jewish leaders accepted it, the Arab leaders rejected this plan.

On 14 May 1948, when the British Mandate expired, the Zionist leadership declared the State of Israel. In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that immediately followed, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia intervened and were defeated by Israel. About 800,000 Palestinians fled from areas annexed by Israel and became refugees in neighboring countries, thus creating the "Palestinian problem," which has bedeviled the region ever since. Approximately two-thirds of 758,000—866,000 of the Jews expelled or who fled from Arab lands after 1948 were absorbed and naturalized by the State of Israel.

The departure of the European powers from direct control of the region, the establishment of Israel, and the increasing importance of the oil industry, marked the creation of the modern Middle East. These developments led to a growing presence of the United States in Middle East affairs. The U.S. was the ultimate guarantor of the stability of the region, and from the 1950s the dominant force in the oil industry. When republican revolutions brought radical anti-Western regimes to power in Egypt in 1954, in Syria in 1963, in Iraq in 1968 and in Libya in 1969, the Soviet Union, seeking to open a new arena of the Cold War in the Middle East, allied itself with Arab rulers such as Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. These regimes gained popular support through their promises to destroy the state of Israel, defeat the U.S. and other "western imperialists," and to bring prosperity to the Arab masses. When they failed to deliver on their promises, they became increasingly despotic.

The Europeans spoilt the region before World War II and the US screwed it up after World War II till now. The US only interested with the oil that the region produces and at the same time they strongly arm the Israelis to scare off and police the Arabs. It is an open secret that Israel has several nuclear weapons but Iran no can do.

(Fact extracted from Wikipedia but the opinion is solely mine).