There is oppression all over the Middle East. The countries in the region are generally dominated by an ethnic or religious minority.
There were 483 million people in the middle east in 2023 and there will be about 500 million in 2024.
The largest socioethnic groups in the region are Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azerbaijanis but there are dozens of other ethnic groups that have hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of members. Other indigenous, religious, or minority ethnic groups include: Armenians, Assyrians, Baloch, Copts, Cypriots, Druze, Gilaks, Greeks, Jews, Kawliya, Jews Kurds, Laz, Lurs, Mandaeans, Maronites, Mazanderanis, Mhallami, Nawar, Pontic Greeks, Rūm Christians, Samaritans, Shabaks, Talysh, Tats, Yazidis and Zazas.
The Kurds had a war in Iraq where up to 300,000 people died (1969, 1974-75).
Iran can put down protests and proto-civil wars in 2021, 2022 and 500-1000 people are likely killed. However, the families and the people don’t forget. 5-8 million Baloch have fought for freedom many times over the past few decades.
Iran has had a policy and strategy of supporting opposition groups in the territory of their enemies. Iran gives a few hundred million dollars a year to Hamas and a billion dollars to Hezbollah. Iran gives weapons and support to the Houthis at about a few hundred million or maybe a billion.
IF someone other countries or group gave money and weapons to a half dozen or a dozen similar size or larger groups in the area then Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan would all have intense conflicts happening.
Cheap and abundant drone weapons and other cheap and deadly weapons would increase the body counts.
There could be a dozen or more high intensity conflicts at the same time instead of about four now.
The Middle East already has the war in Gaza, civil war in Syria, Yemen civil war and Houthi fighting the US and allies in the Persian Gulf.
Iran has backed attacks on US bases in Iraq for months.
Hezbellah, another Iranian back terror organization, has had a relatively contained amount of fighting with about 300 killed over three months.
There has also been some fighting in the West Bank.
Iran fired missiles into Syria, Iraq and Pakistan after Iran had a bombing that killed a few dozen people. The bombing was claimed by ISIS.
What if Everyone in the Middle East Fought at the Same Time? Most of the Middle East would be in flames.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
One of the biggest mistakes – which was deliberate – was to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Hussein’s Iraq was the best check against Iran’s territorial hegemony ambitions. Now, Iraq is almost a satellite of Iran, with Iranian revolutionary guards stationed in Iraq and attacking Americans that fought to “free” Iraq of Hussein. China is getting some of the oil wealth too, aligning with Iran.
Violence, exploitation and oppression are the only models of society in the Middle East, with the partial exception of Israel. I say partial not because Israel isn’t democratic – its Knesset is more diverse than our Congress by a long shot – but because they too, have adopted violent, oppressive tendencies. Whether this is mostly a response to continuous attacks from their neighbors (often backed by Iran) or “natural” to their society is open to debate, though as a society, they are certainly less violent and oppressive than any other country in the region. Without Israel, it would be open season on Jews and even Christians, anywhere in the world. The real genocide is against Jews & Christians in the ME, not against Gazans or Palestinians, who have only greatly increased in numbers (another argument for why population increase is not a good thing, in and of itself) over the post WWII period.
Religion is really the number 1 problem.
Try thinking harder. Dogma and zealotry are the problem. 30 million Sikh’s aren’t causing wars. Traditional Hindu and Buddhist adherents aren’t really starting a lot of conflicts. Since the Christians have been rooting out dogma and zealotry, there’s fewer and fewer problems they’ve started.
Now we have the Marxists and Scientists that are stirring all new kinds “mostly peaceful but fiery protests” over dogma and zealotry. Not traditionally known as religion, but if you try and claim religion is the number 1 problem, you’re going to have to expand the definition of religion.
There is nothing to think harder about. Buddha is a philosopher and teacher, Moses is the leader of oppressed, Jesus is a healer and a teacher. Mohammad on the other hand is a warlord. This one is really a no-brainer.
Christians have been rooting out dogma and zealotry ? They are still going hard on abortion, lgbt, darwin, and so on… Too many people want to make politics out of their religion. Belief in a god is a private belief, not something you force others into. 95% of trump’s voters are like that.
Well, Christians are the most persecuted group on earth. Throughout Africa, the Middle East, and China-North Korea, they are slaughtered and brutally enslaved. https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2024/01/18/5k-christians-murdered-365m-christians-persecuted-in-2023-n4925628
Followers of Christ (as opposed to nominal Christians) believe in peacefully loving all people, regardless of other’s beliefs. Jesus’ message is one of inclusion and acceptance. He ministered to drunks, prostitutes, the diseased, and different races. (just like Mother Teresa and 10,000s of Christian volunteers all over the world today). We are all flawed, but we all have value.
Christians built the great universities in Europe and the US (they’ve since been taken over by secularists). Christians built the largest and most generous hospitals (they’ve since been taken over by capitalists). The Red Cross disaster response teams are mainly composed of retired Baptist, Methodist, and Catholic men. All over the world, Christians volunteer to build schools, water wells, and hospitals in the name of Jesus.
When AIDS first struck, a remarkable amount of Christian volunteers went into hospitals and held the hands of the dying, letting those who had been abandoned know they were loved.
During the pandemic lockdowns, thousands of Christian churches opened their doors to the lonely and depressed, especially among the teens and 20-year-olds who experienced great mental problems.
Joshua (above) was right: the problem is zealotry. (Everybody has dogma). But not everyone chooses to peacefully exist with others of different views.
Read some history. There’s a long one, and still progress to be made. I too agree that may Christian religious types push too hard for their religion in politics. But atheist children aren’t being indoctrinated with spirituality in public school while religious children are absolutely being groomed with gender and sexual content far before sexual maturity.
You need to cite that ridiculous 95% In fact I would wager >5% of Trump voters are self-described atheist or agnostic. And that is to say nothing for the silent and faithful majority who take the same position that our founders did on the separation of church and state. As an informed Catholic, I’m well aware of historical damage that mixing church and state has done to both institutions.
Or we could say frankly what we are talking about: What is ‘Truth’, and how do we relate to it?
Your and others’ similar complaints against Christian ‘dogmatics’ are at bottom a complaint about their answer to the above questions. They affirm that there is moral truth that would exist on this earth if the world were a barren rock. It does not come from us, it has no need of us, and our highest purpose is to seek it, understand it more clearly, and confirm our beliefs and actions to it’s nature as best we can.
You affirm that legitimate faith must hold the opposite: That religious faith is a private matter, that it’s purpose is to serve our personal needs and convenience, and that to affirm a moral truth that – to borrow from Phillip K. Dick – when you stop believing in it, continues to be real – is irrational and destructive. It sound like you have to quarter for those who would say ‘Let God be true, and every man a liar’.
Personally, I would think long and hard about the wisdom of declaring the very concept of a Truth that we discover and accommodate ourselves to as destructive dogma. We haven’t exactly found a proven foundation to replace it over the last couple centuries….