Introduction
The Middle East and North Africa, a region predominantly populated by various nations with different faiths, the majority of whom being Muslims, has had a different landscape in political, economic, and social terms since the demise of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. More than 20 countries were founded, particularly after the British Empire and France withdrew from their mandates in the region. While all states’ populations consist of a Muslim majority, Israel is an exception as it is both ethnically and religiously Jewish. Besides, sectarian fragmentations are conspicuous in Middle Eastern states. Thus, the region is divided into various religious, sectarian, sub-sectarian, ethnic, and ideological fragments, which make it more fragile.
Due to the above complex spectrum, the Middle East has become a domain of conflicts and wars during the post-Ottoman era. One could witness an intra-state civil war or an inter-state war or an intervention by great powers any time in the last 100 years. The world audience witnessed the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the oppression of local people by authoritarian regimes, sectarian contentions between Sunni and Shiite groups, the Arab Spring, the Iraqi invasion by America, the Kuwaiti invasion by Iraq, the Iran-Iraq war, the Qatari blockade, the murder of several authoritarian leaders, the oppression of minorities by the central government, and many other conflicts in the last decades. Few other regions in the world have gone through so many clashes happening at the same time. As for other parts of Ottoman basin, e.g. the Balkans and the Caucasus, the situation was not different from the Middle East, but given that the region is a hub for the biggest hydrocarbon resources and the place of holy cities and temples, conflicts were/are almost always there and open-ended.
