Before the Second World War, conflicts in the Middle East were caused by issues regarding colonisation. After the war and after the colonisation had finished, conflicts got more and more serious and the blame was pinned on the battle between the western and Soviet camp during the Cold War.

New wars were starting after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the nineties. They started in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, and there was also significant trouble in Eritrea, South Yemen, Algeria and Egypt – all because of political vacuum.

In August 2014, the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said that the Islamic State posed a threat to the Middle East. He said that the “monster” is growing and that it does not recognise “Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, or Druze, Yazidis, Arabs, or Kurds”. He said that Arab monarchies were under great threat and declared that the presence of Hezbollah in Syria is primarily to “defend Lebanon, the resistance in Lebanon and all Lebanese”.

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, Iran and its proxies have had victory after victory and have been given legitimacy time and time again.

The US representative to the United Nations – Ambassador Nikki Haley – was the chair at the latest UN Security Council debate regarding the situation in the Middle East. At these meetings, Israel is always discussed, and not often in a positive light. 

However, Haley wanted this latest debate to be different. She acknowledged that it was essential that an Israeli-Palestinian solution was negotiated, but said that the debate has a tendency to get nowhere.

A Paris conference recently weighed the critical situation in Yemen and the possibility of establishing peace.

General Ahmed al-Asiri, an advisor to the Saudi Defense Minister and spokesman of the Arab coalition provided further explanations in this regard and referred to Iran’s meddling throughout the region.