(March 15th 2024) - Toronto, Canada

The Cradle of Civilization, the Levant, the North of Africa, and the Near East of Asia. However you want to describe it, it’s home to 370m people, with every religion represented, every global economy dependent on its success, and a history of unrepute.

The land is no longer fertile, and the culture has developed itself as a pass through – where merchants act as middlemen on a silk road, or via the Egyptian Suez Canal. Echoes of enlightenment fill old libraries and museums, but The Crusades (1095-1291) took something of value back to the Latin Churches, at time when the European’s found new deep sea routes to the East. The 20th Century global relations renewed as a discovered need and dependency on Oil, came to define the new identity of the Arabian Peninsula, for better or for worse.

At the end of World War II the League of Nations, rebranded as the United Nations (UN), took efforts to both settle and create border disputes throughout the Arab lands. An Israeli State was created (1948), a Kurdish one was promised and the Turks felt like they were Ottoman’s, again. The division between the Muslim Shia (Iran) and Sunni’s (Saudi Arabia) define the regions temperament best, with American Imperialism support and desire to ensure local dysfunction. To showcase economic strength OPEC was created (1961), later backed by Russia, to control the supply and price of oil as a commodity. In response America partnered with Saudi Arabia to upgrade regional telecommunications and weaponry, as long as oil trade was conducted in U.S. Dollars (1973). In the 1980’s strife between Iraq and Iran, fueled by American arms, set the relationship with America that lasted for 3 decades of violence and fighting.

Today, the coastal cities thrive on open enterprise and hospitality (ignoring religious differences), and the interior fights a long waged battle between the Jews and the Muslims. While Christians sponsor the efforts from afar, the Orthodox on one side and the Evangelical’s on the other, each finding a way to profit.

As shale extraction in North America now represents the greatest production of global oil and gas, the Arab Nations (and Russia) look to the East to demand their supply, resulting in a global order shift. In August 2023, China brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to maintain peace, which lasted up until October. When Saudi Arabia and Israel began to negotiate terms for trade relations in September 2023, they left both Palestine and Iran out of the discussion, antagonizing a war between the Iranian IRGC proxies and the Israeli IDF that has since brought the rest of the world, the Hague and others in with opinion and sentiment.

• > If the UN sees fit to support the ‘Peace in the Middle East’ process, the blueprints are set out in previous Accords, Camp David (1978), Oslo (1993), and Abraham (2019).

  • For success all parties need to compromise and accept; a Saudi civilian led nuclear program, a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine, overturn the Israeli Netanyahu government, relieve Iranian sanctions.

  • Key:  Europe, particularly Turkiye, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S shall only remain as observer states.

• > If the BRICS were to support the region, trade with Russia and China continue with impunity and no Western restrictions would be placed on human rights or democratic principles. However, a need to trade with the West for economic and technologic input will still reside, but at arms length.

• > If the U.S. gently exit the region, as oil production interest dwindles, then they may limit their support for Israel and build relations with Turkiye, who represents the greatest regional military power within arms reach of the region.

• > If the U.S. wants to cripple Iran, they will strike Kharg Island which supplies 50% of China’s Oil energy.

• > If Iran wants to cripple the region, it can continue to limit traffic throughout the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

• > If Saudi Arabia wants to rebrand the region, its vision of 2030 is a good growth plan that will open its borders as a place for global tourism, in a similar fashion seen in Dubai and the U.A.E.

• > If Israel wants to find regional stability, they will renew economic trade talks with the Arab nations and build economic relationships that take in compromises to support key rights for all Palestinians.

In all outcomes, the U.S. looks to become less of a broker in the region, and Israeli / Arab relations need to find economic incentives to overcome the long history of religious difference. 

21st Century Timeline

2000 – Israeli troops leave Lebanon; Second Intifada

2001 – al-Qaeda attacked sites in the U.S., event is known as 9/11

2003 – U.S. invades Iraq

2004 – Houthi insurgency in Yemen

2005 – Syrian troops leave Lebanon as a result of the Cedar Revolution

2006 – Israel-Lebanon conflict; Saddam Hussein executed for crimes against humanity

2010 – Arab Spring; protests in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

2010 – Syrian Civil War (the ruling Ba'ath party and various opposition parties.)

2014 – ISIS rises in Iraq and Syria

2015 – The Saudi intervention in Yemen

2019 – ISIS is defeated in Syria and Iraq cease by 2019

2020 –Assassination of Qasem Soleimani, Abraham Accords

2023 – October 7th attacks by Hamas within Israeli borders