Modern Midde Eastern History

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Modern Middle Eastern History
The term “Middle East” refers to territory that exists towards the western part of the Asian continent and that which is found in the north of the African continent. The countries that are considered part of the middle east region include Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, turkey, the united Arab emirates, Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia, Comoros, Djibouti, Kazakhstan, Libya, Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan and Tunisia among others (Mansfield,33). The Middle East as it is known today came into existence after the First World War whereby the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled for centuries, was felled. This was followed by the portioning of the region into states by the British and their subsequent colonization. It is also around this time when the Middle East countries such as Iran and Iraq among others began producing oil and they became the world’s major producers of oil (Ochsenwald and Fisher, 105).
Prior to the First World War, the Middle East as well as most of the other parts of Asia were under the Ottoman Empire which may also be referred to as the Turkish Empire or Turkey. The rule of the Ottomans had begun in the fifteenth century in Constantinople ending after their defeat in the First World War by the European forces. The empire had officially entered the First World War in the year 1914 and it fought on the same side with Central Powers, a warring faction that was composed of modern day Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria. This was enabled by the Ottoman-German Alliance, an agreement between the Ottoman Empire and Germany for the purposes of securing land that had been lost by the Empire to Russia. Further, the Ottoman Empire thought that hthey may acquire new territories if they would remove countries such as Persia from the control of the Russians which would make way for them to conquer states such as Azerbaijan, Central Asia as well as India among others. This was in sharp contrast to the intentions that the western powers had for the region and in this way, the Ottoman Empire was in conflict with western powers who relied on the region for fuel. The wars in which the Middle East engaged in were carried out in what was known as the Middle Eastern theatre and which took place between the years 1914 and 19218. The ottoman’s empire was victorious in several battles such as the Battle of Gallipoli and the Siege of Kut but was defeated in the Caucus Campaign which was targeted at the Russians. The Russian army had the assistance of some members of the Ottoman’s Empire namely the Armenians and for this, the Empire massacred thousands of them in what is known as the “Armenian Genocide”.
In 1916, an event known as the Arab revolt took place in the empire whereby Sherif Hussein bin Ali sought to overthrow the Ottoman Empire. The O...