US Conflicts in SW Asia Crash Course

A root cause of much of the conflict in the Middle East is the way the Ottoman Empire was broken up after World War I. This was known as the "Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire." Partitioning means to break into parts.

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Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire

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The countries that won World War I turned many of the areas of the Ottoman Empire into something like colonies. Many of the territories controlled by those powers eventually became countries in the Middle East.​

Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire

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The problem is, the European powers did not pay attention to who they put together and who they separated. In Iraq, they created a country that had about an equal number of Sunni and Shi'a. Those two groups have been fighting for hundreds of years.

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Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire

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Another issue was the Kurds. They wanted to have their own country, but they were split between several new countries. This has led some Kurds to try to leave using violence.

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Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire

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Not all of the conflicts in the Middle East are directly related to the partitioning. Some of them are a result of US involvement in the region, aggressive actions of dictators, and the US response to terrorism.

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US Intervention​

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• In August of 1990, Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded Kuwait

  The US responded by sending military assets to Saudi Arabia (Operation Desert Shield)

  In January of 1991, US and allied coalition troops invaded southern Iraq and Kuwait and pushed out the Iraqi army (Operation Desert Storm)

  Hussein stayed in power

• On September 11, 2001 terrorists from al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center

• ​al-Qaeda was upset that the US was supporting Israel and that they left troops in Saudi Arabia after the Persian Gulf War

  The US responded by invading Afghanistan in October of 2001

  The goal was to destroy al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and remove the Taliban from the government of Afghanistan (for aiding al-Qaeda)

• In March of 2003, the US invaded Iraq

  The reason was a believed link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda and believed stockpiling of WMD

  Hussein was overthrown and a new democratic government was set up

  In 2006, Saddam Hussein was executed by the new US supported Iraqi government