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A clear explanation of American Middle East policy This updated version of Fault Lines is written for those interested in understanding the often convoluted history of American Middle East policy. By enumerating the actors, conflicts, actions and consequences that have shaped American policy in the region, Liebich succeeds in clarifying for his readers the most important factors in a very complicated chain of events. The main takeaway is a general picture of the "fault lines" that have often plagued U.S. efforts to protect its national interests in the region and how these ongoing faults have led to a precipitous decline in American influence. The author makes recommendations as to how this decline can be reversed.
*Includes pictures *Discusses the Sunni-Shia divide, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Syrian civil war, the history of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, and al-Qaeda, and more. *Includes footnotes and bibliographies for further reading The Middle East has been a troubled region for centuries, and it is perhaps the most notorious hotspot in the early 21st century, as longstanding political and religious issues continue to roil the region. As a result, countries across the region have uneasy alliances against each other, open conflicts with some, and an ongoing civil war in Syria that has Iranian and Syrian proxies fighting against other groups supported by different nations. Throw in substate terrorist groups and militias like the Islamic State, and the mix has become even deadlier of late. Today, the most important religious split is between the Sunnis and the Shias (Shiites) within Islam. Unlike divisions in other faiths - between Conservative and Orthodox Jews or Catholic and Protestant Christians - the split between the Sunnis and Shia has existed almost as long as the faith itself, and it quickly emerged out of tensions created by the political crisis after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. In a sense, what are now two different forms of Islam essentially started as political factions within the unified body of Muslim believers. Over the past few centuries, Christians have mostly been able to live alongside their co-religionists, but the split between the Sunnis and Shias is still so pronounced that many adherents of each branch view each other with disdain if not as outright apostates or non-believers. The religious divide is perhaps the most important fault line in the turbulent Middle East today, with Sunni nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia at odds with Shiite nations like Iran. At lower levels, non-state groups like the Islamic State and Hezbollah are fighting each other in ways that cross state lines in places like Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. Although it is technically a split in religion, the divide has had substantial global ramifications for decades, and there seems to be no end in sight. While the religious divides have spawned groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and others, the controversial conflict between Israel and the Palestinians continues to be perhaps the most contentious foreign policy issue not just across the Middle East but much of the world, as Western powers have constantly tried to help broker peace over the last several decades. The conflict is also one of the most historically complex, making it all the more important to understand it. The Fault Lines of the Middle East traces the origins of the Sunni-Shia split and the historic effects of the main divide within Islam, which continues to wreak havoc in places like Iraq and Syria today. It also discusses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Syrian civil war, the historic Iranian Revolution, and the history and beliefs of influential groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the history of the Middle East like never before.
*Includes pictures *Discusses the Sunni-Shia divide, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Syrian civil war, the history of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, and al-Qaeda, and more. *Includes footnotes and bibliographies for further reading The Middle East has been a troubled region for centuries, and it is perhaps the most notorious hotspot in the early 21st century, as longstanding political and religious issues continue to roil the region. As a result, countries across the region have uneasy alliances against each other, open conflicts with some, and an ongoing civil war in Syria that has Iranian and Syrian proxies fighting against other groups supported by different nations. Throw in substate terrorist groups and militias like the Islamic State, and the mix has become even deadlier of late. Today, the most important religious split is between the Sunnis and the Shias (Shiites) within Islam. Unlike divisions in other faiths - between Conservative and Orthodox Jews or Catholic and Protestant Christians - the split between the Sunnis and Shia has existed almost as long as the faith itself, and it quickly emerged out of tensions created by the political crisis after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. In a sense, what are now two different forms of Islam essentially started as political factions within the unified body of Muslim believers. Over the past few centuries, Christians have mostly been able to live alongside their co-religionists, but the split between the Sunnis and Shias is still so pronounced that many adherents of each branch view each other with disdain if not as outright apostates or non-believers. The religious divide is perhaps the most important fault line in the turbulent Middle East today, with Sunni nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia at odds with Shiite nations like Iran. At lower levels, non-state groups like the Islamic State and Hezbollah are fighting each other in ways that cross state lines in places like Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria. Although it is technically a split in religion, the divide has had substantial global ramifications for decades, and there seems to be no end in sight. While the religious divides have spawned groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and others, the controversial conflict between Israel and the Palestinians continues to be perhaps the most contentious foreign policy issue not just across the Middle East but much of the world, as Western powers have constantly tried to help broker peace over the last several decades. The conflict is also one of the most historically complex, making it all the more important to understand it. The Fault Lines of the Middle East traces the origins of the Sunni-Shia split and the historic effects of the main divide within Islam, which continues to wreak havoc in places like Iraq and Syria today. It also discusses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Syrian civil war, the historic Iranian Revolution, and the history and beliefs of influential groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the history of the Middle East like never before.
The region of the Middle East is beset with a structural crisis of which particular crises confronting the component countries happen to be merely subsets. The real questions revolve round the issue of how long can the present dispensations of power and social structures in the region forged in the twentieth century (first half or second) can last in the twenty-first, when they no longer reflect the realities on the ground. This volume aims to look at some of the issues to see how the faultlines in the region appear in 2020 to both those in the region, and those outside it. The volume limits itself to only Levant and the Gulf and looks at the tensions within and policies (both foreign and domestic) of some of the key regional players which have regional repercussions. It also looks at the policies of some of the global players operating in the region that have bearing on the regional faultlines. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)
Fault Lines is written by a non-academic former businessman and consultant, widely traveled in the Middle East, for those interested in understanding the often convoluted history of American Middle East policy. The book explains the fault lines that have often plagued U.S. efforts to protect its national interests in the region and how these ongoing faults have led to a precipitous decline in American influence. The author makes some recommendations as to how this decline can be reversed.
Overconfident: How Economic and Health Fault Lines Left the Middle East and North Africa Ill-Prepared to Face COVID This report examines the region’s economic prospects in 2021, forecasting that the recovery will be both tenuous and uneven as per capita GDP level stays below pre-pandemic levels. COVID-19 was a stress-test for the region’s public health systems, which were already overwhelmed even before the pandemic. Indeed, a decade of lackluster economic reforms left a legacy of large public sectors and high public debt that effectively crowded out investments in social services such as public health. This edition points out that the region’s health systems were not only ill-prepared for the pandemic, but suffered from over-confidence, as authorities painted an overly optimistic picture in self-assessments of health system preparedness. Going forward, governments must improve data transparency for public health and undertake reforms to remedy historical underinvestment in public health systems.
For decades, US foreign policy in the Middle East has been on autopilot: Seek Arab-Israeli peace, fight terrorism, and urge regimes to respect human rights. Every US administration puts its own spin on these initiatives, but none has successfully resolved the region’s fundamental problems. In Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East? a bipartisan group of leading experts representing several academic and policy disciplines unravel the core causes of instability in the Middle East and North Africa. Why have some countries been immune to the Arab Spring? Which governments enjoy the most legitimacy and why? With more than half the region under 30 years of age, why does education and innovation lag? How do resource economies, crony capitalism, and inequality drive conflict? Are ethnic and sectarian fault lines the key factor, or are these more products of political and economic instability? And what are the wellsprings of extremism that threaten not only the United States but, more profoundly, the people of the region? The answers to these questions should help policymakers and students of the region understand the Middle East on its own terms, rather than just through a partisan or diplomatic lens. Understanding the pillars of instability in the region can allow the United States and its allies to rethink their own priorities, adjust policy, recalibrate their programs, and finally begin to chip away at core challenges facing the Middle East. Contributors: Thanassis Cambanis Michael A. Fahy Florence Gaub Danielle Pletka Bilal Wahab A. Kadir Yildirim
Shocks and Rivalries in the Middle East and North Africa is the first book to examine issue-driven antagonisms within groups of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) states and their impact on relations within the region. The volume also considers how shock events, such as internal revolts and regional wars, can alter interstate tensions and the trajectory of conflict. MENA has experienced more internal rivalries than any other region, making a detailed analysis vital to understanding the region’s complex political, cultural, and economic history. The state groupings studied in this volume include Israel and Iran; Iran and Saudi Arabia; Iran and Turkey; Iran, Iraq, and Syria; Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and Algeria and Morocco. Essays are theoretically driven, breaking the MENA region down into a collection of systems that exemplify how state and nonstate actors interact around certain issues. Through this approach, contributors shed rare light on the origins, persistence, escalation, and resolution of MENA rivalries and trace significant patterns of regional change. Shocks and Rivalries in the Middle East and North Africa makes a major contribution to scholarship on MENA antagonisms. It not only addresses an understudied phenomenon in the international relations of the MENA region, it also expands our knowledge of rivalry dynamics in global politics.
The wealth of petroleum has made the Middle East one of the most actively explored regions of the world. The volume of geological, geophysical and geochemical data collected by the petroleum industry in recent decades is enormous. The Middle East may be a unique region in the world where the volume of subsurface data and information exceeds that based on surface outcrop.This book reviews the tectonic and geological history of the Middle East and the regional hydrocarbon potential on a country by country basis in the context of current ideas developed through seismic and sequence stratigraphy and incorporating the ideas of global sea level change.Subsurface data have been used as much as possible to amplify the descriptions.The paleogeographic approach provides a means to view the area as a whole. While the country by country approach inevitably leads to some repetition, it enhances the value of the volume as a teaching tool and underlines some of the changing lithologies within formations carrying the same name.
This Handbook analyzes elections in the Middle East and North Africa and seeks to overcome normative assumptions about the linkage between democracy and elections. Structured around five main themes, contributors provide chapters detailing how their case studies illustrate specific themes within individual country settings. Authors disentangle the various aspects informing elections as a process in the Middle East by taking into account the different contexts where the electoral contest occurs and placing these into a broader comparative context. The findings from this Handbook connect with global electoral developments, empirically demonstrating that there is very little that is “exceptional” about the Middle East and North Africa when it comes to electoral contests. Routledge Handbook on Elections in the Middle East and North Africa is the first book to examine all aspects related to elections in the Middle East and North Africa. Through such comprehensive coverage and systematic analysis, it will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in politics, elections, and democracy in the Middle East and North Africa.