The Middle Man

  Hey hey! Get ready for my last blog post!!  The question today is (summarized): what is the most important for outsiders to understand about the international politics of MENA?    To start my response to this question, I want to go back to the first few class sessions that we had. I remember the first or second day of class, my professor had us discuss what ideas we, as a class, had about the Middle East. Before instructing any sort of factual lesson, we spent time discussing the stereotypes and implicit bias we had about the MENA region. He had us question what the popular media coverage was like and what information we had been fed by the media and our own cultures in general. The professor literally started at the beginning, the course name: International Politics of the Middle East. What do we mean by ‘international politics’? What sorts of preconceived ideas might come with IR labels? What does the ‘Middle East’ even mean? Where does that name come from?  One variation of a map

  One of the United States’ favorite pastimes is getting involved. In the simplest– and most colloquial wording possible- it makes everyone else’s problems its own. Often, non-consensually.  In order to dive into the effects on regional politics of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, we must first glaze over the relevant history.  The Build-Up In August 1990 Iraq invaded its neighboring country Kuwait, in a quest for more oil-producing land and therefore more power. At this time Iraq was a regional power, which is arguably attributed to its highly-motivated dictator, Saddam Hussein. Hussein came into power in 1979, shortly before the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, in which neither side truly won.  The global response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was unprecedented. The UN Security Council declared Iraq’s invasion a violation of international law, and global powers– even Iraq’s allies– came together to oppose its control of Kuwait.  From the tragedy of the terrorist attacks on Septemb