The Middle East Explained

Like mentioned in my blog earlier. I am a huge fan of history, geo politics and not responding to messages like these on this platform.

My previous blog where I discussed Russias invasion of Ukaraine was well received (PS : You can read it here : https://medium.com/@deepfriedpakoda/ukraine-91b5c5ca86ff ) or just search for Ukaraine in my blog list. I contemplated hard in getting into the vastness of the middle east issues but messages like these propels me further :

I refrained from explaining the Israel-Palestine issue simply because I don’t believe I can condense centuries of history into a single blog post. However, the recent developments between Israel and Iran in the last 24 hours are significant. I’ll discuss how this situation has arisen, its background, and highlight how it could potentially escalate into a widescale war involving multiple countries. So please, read on.

Context to the Israel and Gaza Strip/ Palestine (Simplified Version)

• Hamas attacked Israel, and in retaliation, Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas once and for all, leading to unprecedented attacks and ground troop invasions. Israel has so far refused to heed any directives from even its closest allies and the UN, continuing its onslaught
• The war has been brutal. Gaza strip, which is a tiny, highly dense strip of land only 40 kilometers long and houses close to 2 million people, has been cut off from water, electricity, and food supplies. Israel, which controls much of these supplies even prior to the war, has made it impossible for any humanitarian aid until recently.

• The citizens of Gaza were asked to flee to the south of the border to escape the onslaught of bombing, only for the region to be relentlessly attacked by Israel. Meanwhile, Egypt refused to take in any Palestinians and blocked the border completely.

Context to Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel ( Simplified)

• There have been numerous wars, countless insurgent uprisings, and militia groups riddling the Middle East since the early 1920s. However, a constant presence throughout all these turmoils has been the rivalry between two bitter foes: Saudi Arabia and Iran. The relationship between these two nations is so complex, and their impact on the Middle East is so far-reaching that I will cover this in another blog. For now, let us focus on Iran and Israel. Since Israel is heavily backed by the USA, which annoys Iran, simply because it sees Israel as a representative of the USA in the Middle East. But let me digress here and briefly discuss the issue between Iran and the USA.

Context to Iran and USA ( Simplified)

• This goes back to the 1950s. The Iranians had a democratically elected PM, who wanted to nationalise the oil in the country.
• Before that, the oil fields were under the control of British Petroleum (BP), and an agreement was laid out with the Shah (the then ruler of Iran) for a measly sum, causing Iran to lose their fair share of oil money
• The newly elected PM wanted to change the agreement and led the vote to nationalize oil, ultimately succeeding. However, British Petroleum (BP) did not like this move as it severely impacted its operations. BP went to the British government, which, with the aid of the American government, overthrew the democratically elected leader and reinstated a Shah to power (the monarchy before democracy entered Iran)
• Initially, the USA was reluctant to get involved, but after hearing words like ‘oil’ and ‘communism,’ they decided to intervene
• The USA and UK combined worked with the Shah to take control of nation and worked with him and his supporters to overthrow the government.
• Fun fact this was the first operation under the newly formed CIA.
• This shift in power resulted in Iran moving from a fully constitutional monarchy to a royal dictatorship.
• Post the coup, the oil went back in control of the British and the Shah had a huge backing of the USA.
• In 1957 US government helped Iran form their infamous police force called : SAVAK which tortured the political opponents of the Shah.
• Now there was a huge unrest growing in Iran and finally was overthrown but the hatred for the USA never ended.

Context : Back to Israel and Iran.

• As previously stated, Iran aims to assert itself as the primary influencer in the Middle East, placing it squarely in conflict with other regional powers such as Israel and Saudi Arabi which also brings in USA to the picture,.
• While the proxy war continues with Saudi Arabia which was seen in Iraq, Syria and now in Yemen. Iran is also in a proxy war with Israel.
• Irans proxy war towards Israel is called the “Axis of Resistance” , which has been funding insurgent groups like Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah is Lebanon amongst other groups in Syria, Iran and Yemen.
• So now over the last few months there have been reports of insurgent attacks on Israel and USA establishments across middle east.
• Now Hezbollah, which is their strongest ally of Iran, lies directly to the north of Israel. They have a huge war chest and pose a significant threat to Israel, even more so than Hamas
• To make matters worse Israel bombards the regions in Syria where Iran sends supplies and weapons to Hezbollah.
• Hezbollah has been attacking Israel in small numbers meanwhile.
• Meanwhile USA gathers its naval strike groups and parks it along Iran and Israel sending a strong message that Iran should stop it’s proxy war against Israel.

Context : Iran gets involved directly.

• On April 1st (not an April fools unfortunately) Israel launched a strike on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital, killing around 13 people, included senior Iranian military leaders.
• Iran vowed to bring in a response which they did. Hazebollah attacked from the noth post which Iran launched its offense. This is the first time in a long time that Iran has directly been involved in a war.
• USA directly was involved in bringing some of the missles down headed towards Israel.
• Israel has promised strict retaliation and if this continues the war is going to draw in different countries along with it and potentially a wide scale war.

Conclusion :

The events of the past few months hold immense potential consequences for the world. Therefore, we can only hope for a de-escalation of the situation to prevent the risk of a large-scale war involving multiple countries, which could significantly impact us all, whether directly or indirectly.

In my next blog I’ll try to cover the Saudi Arabia and Iran relation and it’s impact on the middle east.

Please note : These are just factual sequences of events and I offer no opinion in any of them.

To digress completely and share a clip which I came across from one of my favorite artists (David Choe) speaking about another great personality : Anthony Bourdain.

I get troubled when people don’t seem to know of Bourdain or realize his profound impact on food culture and travel through his unique approach to storytelling, exploration, and culinary appreciation. This clip talks about how we need to take mental health a little more seriously and more importantly have the courage to seek help in one way or the other.