By Abdikarim Haji Abdi Buh

For nearly a hundred years, the Middle East has rarely known peace. From Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and Yemen, from the unresolved Palestine–Israel conflict to recurring regional wars, violence has become a grim constant. Millions of lives have been lost. Trillions of dollars have been spent. Yet stability remains elusive.

Why has the Middle East been trapped in almost continuous conflict?

The answer is not simple. The region resembles a vast geopolitical chessboard, where global and regional powers pursue competing interests. But at the heart of today’s turmoil lies a decisive moment nearly a century ago—when the modern borders of the Middle East were drawn.

The Collapse of an Empire

For centuries, most of the Middle East was governed by the Ottoman Empire. At its height in the 16th and 17th centuries, Ottoman rule stretched from Hungary to Yemen. Diverse communities—Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others—lived under a single imperial system that, while imperfect, managed diversity through layered autonomy.

By the 19th century, however, the Ottoman Empire was weakening. At the same time, the British Empire was expanding aggressively across Asia. The Ottomans stood in the way of Britain’s ambition to connect its empire from Europe to India. To overcome this obstacle, Britain began securing influence across the Middle East through treaties and protectorates—signing agreements with Gulf sheikhdoms in 1820, Yemen in 1839, Bahrain in 1861, and Egypt in 1888.

Control of Egypt gave Britain mastery over the Suez Canal, a strategic artery linking Europe to Asia. For the Ottomans, British expansion was an existential threat.

World War I and the Great Betrayal

When World War I broke out in 1914, the Ottomans sided with Germany. Britain and France, already convinced the empire had to be dismantled, secretly negotiated the Sykes–Picot Agreement, carving up Ottoman lands before the war had even ended.

Under this plan, Britain and France divided the Middle East into zones of direct control and indirect influence. Russia was promised territory, while Palestine was designated for international administration. Language, religion, ethnic identity, and local history were largely ignored.

This was the original sin from which many of today’s conflicts flow.

Artificial Borders, Enduring Fault Lines

After the war, the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) formally dismantled the Ottoman Empire. Turkish resistance forced a renegotiation, resulting in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which established modern Turkey and finalized many Middle Eastern borders.

The consequences were profound:

1) The Kurds, a distinct people with their own language and culture, were split among Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran—becoming minorities everywhere and citizens of nowhere.

2) Iraq was created by merging Mosul (largely Kurdish), Baghdad (Sunni Arab), and Basra (Shia Arab), sowing sectarian and ethnic divisions that persist today.

3) Kuwait, once tied economically and administratively to Iraq, was separated—later becoming a trigger for war.

4) Lebanon was created under French rule with a fragile demographic balance that would later collapse into civil war.

5) Syria brought together Sunnis, Shias, Alawites, Kurds, Christians, and others under one state, without a shared national consensus.

These borders were not designed to foster stability; they were designed to serve imperial interests.

Oil Changes Everything

As borders hardened, another force reshaped the region: oil.

Beginning in the 1930s, massive oil reserves were discovered in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and later Syria—often in areas populated by marginalized Shia or Kurdish communities. By mid-century, nearly half of the world’s known oil reserves lay beneath a region fractured by religion, ethnicity, and politics.

Control of oil became synonymous with global power. Britain, the United States, and later the Soviet Union moved from colonial rulers to behind-the-scenes power brokers, shaping governments, backing coups, and funding proxies.

Palestine and the Permanent Crisis

In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, promising support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. After World War II, the United Nations partitioned Palestine, granting a Jewish minority 62 percent of the land. Palestinians, the majority population, were allocated just 38 percent.

In 1948, Israel declared independence. War followed. Israel emerged victorious, expanding far beyond the UN plan. Nearly 700,000 Palestinians were displaced, many fleeing to Lebanon—reshaping its demographics and contributing to its later civil war.

This conflict remains unresolved, fueling regional anger and instability to this day.

From Nationalism to Proxy Wars

The 1950s and 1960s saw the rise of Arab nationalism, embodied by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. His vision of Arab unity threatened monarchies aligned with Western powers and inspired revolutions and proxy conflicts, from Yemen to the Levant.

The Cold War turned the Middle East into a battleground of ideologies and alliances. After Britain’s withdrawal in the early 1970s, the United States stepped in as the dominant external power, driven by strategic interests and energy security.

Iran, Iraq, and Endless Escalation

The 1979 Iranian Revolution transformed the region again, introducing a revolutionary Shia Islamist state determined to export its ideology. Fearing unrest among its Shia majority, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Iran in 1980. The war lasted eight brutal years, backed by regional and global powers on both sides.

When Iraq emerged economically crippled, Saddam invaded Kuwait—triggering a U.S.-led war and cementing America’s military presence across the Gulf.

A Region Still Paying the Price

Today, the Middle East remains entangled in overlapping conflicts:

• Proxy wars in Syria and Yemen
• Sectarian tensions in Iraq
• Strategic rivalry between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and global powers
• Persistent instability tied to unresolved borders, identities, and grievances

The common thread running through it all is history. The arbitrary borders drawn a century ago—designed for imperial convenience, not human reality—created states without social cohesion and conflicts without easy solutions.

Peace in the Middle East remains difficult not because its people desire conflict, but because the foundations of the region were built on division, exclusion, and external ambition. Until those structural injustices are addressed, the region’s long century of war may continue.

Abdikarim Haji Abdi Buh
Email: abdikarimbuh@yahoo.com