The Middle East & North Africa

This part of the world is in a major state of flux. From the stirrings of fundamental Muslims in Morocco, where a new King is now in power, past the dictatorship of Muammar Khadafi in Libya, the ensuing political difficulties of Mubarak's heretofore moderate Egypt, past the oil-rich Saudi peninsula, to the continuing armed conflict in Israel, the threat of warfare from Saddam Hussein, along a more moderate Iran under President Khatami, a peaceful Lebanon, a restless Syria, and Turkey, and the newly emerging former soviet republics gathered along and beyond the Caspian Sea, there is no single consensus of the future of this region.

The major problems involve religion and economics, as described below. It is a region where ferment brews discontent, where America is keeping a watchful eye on the potential for all-out religious holy wars against Westerners and moderate, conservative Muslims. From the arid Sahara's outposts in Northern Africa to the ethnic cleansing of Kurds and other religious sects throughout the Middle East, this region of the world, perhaps more than any other area in the modern world, keeps lights burning in foreign offices of every Western nation. In a brief overview of this vast, populated region, there is fear that an explosion in any of several tinderboxes could happen any time.

Until one reaches Turkey, this is a geographical area of tropical pr

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rural youths streaming to cities like Cairo and Rabat, Algiers and Baghdad, willing to believe that they are deprived of earning a living wage by Western infidels. The demographics of Jordan seem fairly stable, under Hussein's son, Israel is suffering because the influx of Orthodox Eastern European (i.e. Russian) Jews is skewing politics to the right, Lebanon is recovering and stable. Iran is becoming more politically moderate. Of course, what will happen in Iraq once Saddam is gone is anyone's guess. And, Turkey is still recovering from the devastating earthquake, and is finding its European population set against the Anatolian ()i.e. Asian) population, which is more Sunni Muslim, and also now beset by Kurds who left Iraq, forming their own ethnic minority. RESOURCES. This region has one main resource: Oil. If not producing wells, then investments and trade made by petro-entrepreneurs. Throughout the region, the goal is to find more petroleum sources, and then to protect them against foreign companies seeking to make the grater profit from drilling, refining, and trans-shipping. Except for the battleground of Israel and Palestine, every other economy in this part of the world is driven by oil- its discovery, its refineries
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1384
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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