The Middle East might just look like a homogeneous region dominated by Arabs when you look from without. And this is how the colonial powers got it all wrong over a century ago. The root cause of half the conflicts ailing the region can be attributed to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain promised to establish a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. And the other half? It can be traced back to the post-World War I balkanisation of the Ottoman Empire, when the British and the French decided to divide the conquered Ottoman territories without considering the ethnic, religious and regional differences. They literally took a ruler and drew a line on the map. I am not joking. Sir Mark Sykes, after whom one half of the Sykes-Picot Line is named, famously told then British PM HH Asquith, “I should like to draw a line from the E in Acre to the last K in Kirkuk.”
The region controlled by the British was carved into Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and Israel while much of the French territory became Syria. During its less than a century of existence, Iraq was ruled by kings and military dictators until Saddam Hussein’s ouster in 2003. Syria, on the other hand, saw at least 20 coups between 1949 and 1970, until the Assad dynasty took control. Saddam was accused of genocide against Kurds in northern Iraq while Bashar al-Assad, an Alawite, repressed the majority Sunnis in Syria, even allegedly using chemical weapons for genocide.
Most of the conflicts in the Middle East take place in Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen, but the strings are mostly pulled by the regional hegemonies like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and Israel. Add to this the interference of global powers like the US and Russia, each with its own agenda.
Saudi Arabia, where Mecca and Medina are situated, considers itself the leader of the Sunni world while Iran has projected itself as the defender of the Shias. Historically, there was no rivalry between the two oil-rich countries, both of which were allied with the US. But things changed when the 1979 Iranian revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini established a Shiite theocracy. Khomeini slammed the Gulf sheikhdoms for not adhering to Islamic principles and called for similar revolutions in the Middle East monarchies. This pushed the Gulf kingdoms like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to turn against Iran, subsequently leading to their support for Saddam Hussein's failed attempt to invade Iran.
The bitter feud triggered conflicts in the Middle East for decades, well into the Arab Spring in 2011, when widespread protests toppled dictatorships across the region. The first domino was the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, where the rebels ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in January 2011. The next month, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was forced to abdicate, following which Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi was elected President through a democratic election.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Islamist group backed by Turkey and Qatar, but Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain consider them as terrorists who threaten their monarchies. Morsi’s reign was short-lived as the military overthrew him amid widespread protests in Egypt. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi who replaced Morsi became a key ally of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the subsequent years while he viewed Turkey and Qatar with suspicion.
In October of that year, Muammar al-Gaddafi, who ruled Libya since 1969, was assassinated by the rebels. Similar protests in Yemen and Syria turned into civil wars. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia launched Operation Decisive Storm to attack the Houthis backed by Iran. However, the kingdom was unsuccessful in bringing down the Houthis and the civil war continues to plague the country.
The complex geopolitics of the Middle East has pushed the regional and global powers to fund the militant groups that do their bidding. Iran, which has funded Shia rebels across the Middle East, unleashed proxy wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen through Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. With Israel inking truce with Hezbollah and decimating Hamas, the Houthis remain the only major Iran-backed group.
This in turn paved the way for the swift ouster of Assad, with Turkey-backed Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) finding an opportunity in the power vacuum. Mohammed al-Jolani, the de-facto leader of Syria, has been trying hard to bury the al-Qaeda roots of HTS. However, US President Joe Biden said the new Syrian regime will be judged by their actions and not just their words.
During the Syrian civil war, Iran backed the Assad regime, while Saudi Arabia supported rebel Sunni groups like the Jaysh al-Islam and the Free Syrian Army. Saudi Arabia even supported the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front, which later broke away to form the HTS.
Turkey, which had been funding the HTS, has its own interests in Syria’s north which is autonomously ruled by the Kurds. Carving Iraq and Syria out of the Ottoman Empire meant that the Kurdish homeland was spread across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. All four governments look at Kurds suspiciously, given their long-term demand for independence. The US has been bankrolling Kurdish groups like the Peshmerga in Iraq and the YPG in Syria. However, Turkey sees the Kurds in Syria and Iraq as allies of Kurdish militants like the PKK within its territory.
On December 29, 2024, jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan said he expressed his willingness to cooperate with the Turkish government to bring an end to the decades-long insurgency in the country. If this happens, it will be one less conflict in the war-torn region.
Nevertheless, in the absence of a permanent resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, war and bloodshed is likely to plague the Middle East for the foreseeable future.
