33. The Middle East Today: Must-Know History & Country Relations

How did the fall of the Ottoman Empire affect the Middle Eastern region? How did the League of Nations impact borders within the Middle East? What major events and conflicts have happened in the Middle East since World War II? which Middle Eastern countries have friendly relationships, which have complicated relationships, and which ones are enemies. We'll answer these questions and many more in today's episode. The Middle East today must know history and country relations.

Welcome to Wiser World, a podcast for busy people who need a refresher on all things world. Here we explore different regions of the globe. the facts and context you need to think historically about current I truly believe that the more we learn about the world, the more we embrace our shared humanity. I'm your host, Allie Roper. Thanks for being here. Hello, we want to tell you about our new podcast, The World, The Universe and our... from new scientists.

Yes, this is your weekly dose of the biggest, most fascinating discoveries in science, hosted by me, Dr Penny Sarchet. And me, Dr Rowan Hooper. Each week we dive into the experiments, evidence and significance of the latest cutting-edge findings. We talk to expert scientists and what to make of it all, and we draw on new scientists' unparalleled reporting experience to put it all into context.

it's a weekly source of wonder inspiration and rational optimism that's the world the universe and us get it wherever you get your podcast Hello again! A lot has happened in the last few weeks or so. The last episode I published was part three of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict 101 episodes. That was a three-part series. And I published that last episode in late September. And then a few weeks later, the conflict escalated to war.

And it's just been terrible, right, to see the tragedies that have happened that will continue to happen. It's just really, really heavy times. I am grateful to hear that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict episodes have been helpful to a lot of people, especially those who really knew nothing about it to begin with.

And they've been really widely shared. So thank you for sharing them. People from over 70 countries have tuned in. It's just crazy. And I do hope that those episodes can continue to be a resource for people who are looking for context and understanding, especially because... Holy cow, the current events, news, media right now, it's just nuts. So I'm glad that they've been helpful, but I'm also really sad by what's going on right now.

I have had a lot of people ask me if I will share episodes and commentary on the current war situation between Hamas and Israel. And I decided that I'm not going to do that because there are so many people who cover current events. And there aren't nearly as many people who will sit down and explain the background history or the context. And the focus of this podcast has always been to lay groundwork for current events, not to talk about current events.

So I'm going to stick with that. One of the main reasons that I do this podcast

is to help people pick up on patterns. Pattern recognition is really helpful with understanding current events, even predicting what could happen. If you remember from part three of the Palestinian-Israeli episodes, I talk about how... there was a chance of a third intifada happening right obviously much more than that happened but you can see there's pattern recognition when you can see but you can understand the history a little bit better

So for now, I am choosing to stick with history in this podcast. That doesn't mean that I don't have opinions and that I'm not doing things in my own private life about current events. It just means that that's what I'm going to choose to focus on here on the podcast. I also have plans to continue to have some fun cultural topic episodes because sometimes I got to break up that heavy hitter history with some fun stuff.

This month, as I was thinking about what I could talk about, I got a comment on Instagram that said, the last time I was taught anything about the Middle East was ancient Egypt and the pharaohs and pyramids. That was a comment on Instagram.

you know that got me thinking as tensions in the middle east grow we're seeing more and more involvement from other middle eastern nations and i realized that zooming out a little bit onto the middle east at large could be super helpful for people who need a bit more background And so this episode is going to do something a little different than what I've done before. I'm going to go explain some historical background for the modern Middle East, not near as deep as I have in the 101 episode.

I'm gonna then talk about how these countries now interact with each other a little bit about how they got to be that way because the truth is that A lot of people look at the Middle East with kind of a hazy look in their eyes. They kind of get turned off by how complicated it can be. And so my hope is to explain it in an approachable. as approachable a way as possible to demystify it a little bit for us. So just to be clear, this is not a full coverage history of the Middle East.

i'm not doing that i leave a lot out so please use these as a springboard for your own research i'm sure you'll have questions please use it again as a springboard so two quick announcements before we get going First is that I work hard to be meticulous in my editing process. I try not to make mistakes. However, sometimes I get a year wrong or a number wrong or something wrong, and I can't go back and re-record once they're published. So instead, I correct these errors in my show notes.

So be sure to check those out every once in a while to just make sure I didn't add something in there. And second is the way I keep my podcast going is through Patreon. Anyone who signs up for my Patreon gets additional resources for every episode. and those resources can be used to deepen your knowledge. If you'd like to support the podcast with $3, $5, or $10 a month,

You can sign up at patreon.com slash wiserworldpodcast. And I am so grateful to the Patreon supporters. So thank you so much. All right, let's get to it.

Just like in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict episodes when I talked about how words themselves are controversial, the same goes with the term Middle East, right? Some people call it the Near East, others call it Southwest Asia. Some would say that the North African countries are not part of the Middle East. Others group it in.

You know, if you think about it, the term Middle East itself kind of a Eurocentric term right because Asia used to be called the Far East because it's east of Europe right and so it would make sense that the countries between Europe and Asia would be the Middle East right so I don't know, I'm not actually a huge fan of the term but it's so prevalent these days that I feel like I gotta use it to avoid confusion. So there's enough confusion in the world today.

I'm just going to keep it simple and use those terms. But today, when I'm talking about the Middle East, I'm talking about two major areas. The countries of the Levant, that's Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan. Lebanon, Syria. I'm even going to put Egypt in there, even though it's in North Africa. And then the nine countries of the Persian Gulf Arabian Peninsula, which are Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, also known as the UAE, and Yemen. I'm not including Afghanistan or Pakistan. I consider these Asian countries.

So before we get into the countries, it's important to know that nearly this entire region was once under the control of the Ottoman Empire. or it had some kind of Ottoman run-in. Some of these countries had more autonomy or more freedom than others, but most of them were under Ottoman control for a pretty considerable amount of time. So let's talk about that.

The Ottoman Empire, which was headquartered in modern-day Turkey, was around for over 600 years. It started around 1299 and dissolved officially in 1920. That means that the Ottoman Empire was only dissolved 100 years ago. That's really not that long ago. So why is that important? Well, it means that most of the nation states that we now say today are distinctive countries like Iraq or Lebanon. They were more like regions within the Ottoman Empire.

They didn't have distinct boundaries that we see today. So, for example, the part of modern-day Lebanon was called Mount Lebanon during the Ottoman times. It ended up becoming a more autonomous district for a time, but it really wasn't an independent country the way that it is today. Another example is, you know, the land that we now call Iraq was not called Iraq during Ottoman rule. Instead, the territory was divided into different provinces or like administrative districts.

Baghdad was in one of those districts. and it didn't become a nation called Iraq until less than 100 years ago. What I get from this is that the cultures in these areas are quite old, but the nations, the governments themselves that we now see today, are really mostly quite young. Likewise, there was a region in the Ottoman Empire that encompassed nearly all of modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel.

So again, Egypt was called Egypt. I just hope you're seeing here that when you're looking at a map of the Middle East from 100 years ago, It does not look the same. as the map of the middle east now some of the regions might have the same names but their boundaries will be different and this is really really critical i'm going to send out a map of this to my patreon users by the way it's fascinating to look at

the ottomans were predominantly sunni muslim so sunni islam was the official state religion of the ottoman empire and the rulers of the empire known as sultans typically identified as Sunni. So let's pause here for a second and talk about the difference between Sunni and Shia or Shiite Islam.

Now, there are groups within groups within groups within Islam, right? There's like nearly 2 billion people who practice Islam. But the two major sects are called Sunni and Shia, also known as Shiite. I'm going to use the term Shiite. so sunni and shia the reason for this is that when the founding prophet of islam the prophet muhammad died, there was a divide on who should be the next leader. You know, should it be a blood relative of Muhammad or should it be one of his most trusted advisors?

The majority of Muslims at the time followed his trusted advisor. And these Muslims are called Sunni Muslims. It's about 90% of Muslims today are Sunni. The minority group believed Muhammad's blood relatives should lead out, which is approximately 10% of Muslims today, and they are called Shia Muslims. Now because the Shias interpreted the history differently than the Sunnis, they have different rules and traditions and sacred sites as a result. have not always gotten along.

This can play into relations within countries as well. For example, Iran today is primarily Shia Muslim. Iraq has a large Shia and Sunni population, which has led to sectarian differences and conflicts. The rest of the Middle East is mostly Sunni. This is all going to play into it as we talk about the history.

so let's go back for a second to the ottoman empire as sunni muslims they ruled by islamic law and the empire was really big so the governing style was mostly to appoint local leaders and officials to govern provinces and then that you know orders were given from istanbul and they were carried out right taxes and laws Well, over time, the Ottoman Empire declined through many centuries, as you can imagine.

It took military defeats, it lost territories, it had economic problems. It also started to lag behind Europe and its technological advances. And over time, the different religious and ethnic groups began challenging the empire and different movements began to crop up wanting independence. But what really put the nail in the coffin for the Ottoman Empire was World War I.

so the ottoman empire fought with the central powers so that's austria-hungary germany and bulgaria generally in world war one The Allied powers included the major powers of Russia, France, the UK, the United States at the end, plus some other countries that joined along the way. In the end, again, it's the Allies versus the Central Powers. In the end, the Allies won. and the war was from 1914 to 1918. It's fought not just in Europe,

It was also fought in some regions of the Ottoman Empire and other areas as well. For example, there was a Battle of Jerusalem in 1917, and the British conquered Jerusalem in that battle.

So during World War I, in 1916, something pretty significant happened. Two diplomats, one British and one French, anticipated that the Allies were going to beat the Ottoman Empire in the war. And so they made a secret agreement between Great Britain and France. with the goal to divide up the Ottoman Empire's territories in the Middle East and put them under British and French influence, either direct influence or indirect influence. This agreement was called the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

Russia was also sort of involved and had a goal of influencing modern-day Turkey and northern Iran, but they also had a lot of issues going on at this time with their own revolution. They also had some international zones thrown in there, but it was mostly the goal was to have Britain and France have more influence over these Ottoman territories once the war was over.

Also near the end of World War I in 1917, the Balfour Declaration was made, which you'll remember from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict episodes. That was when the British government... declared that they supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the state of Palestine. Okay, so a lot of important things are happening here in mid to late World War I. When the war officially ended with the Allied victory,

decisions had to be made of what was going to happen with the Ottoman Empire, right? So the victorious nations got together and created something called the League of Nations in 1920. And we talk about this again in the past episode. One of the components of the League of Nations was a mandate system, and the mandate system allowed for these victorious countries that were part of the League of Nations, Britain, France, others.

to administer to those Ottoman territories with the stated goal of eventual self-rule. So basically, these European countries governed these Middle Eastern areas on behalf of the League. There were actually classes of mandates. There were Class A and Class B mandates. The Class A mandates were territories that were considered advanced. close to self-government, while Class B mandates were territories that required more administrative oversight from the European perspective.

The League sent out groups to assess the regions of the Ottoman Empire, make recommendations for boundaries and territories, There are stated attempts to include tribal, ethnic, or linguistic groups into territories. That's a controversial topic that we'll talk about in just a second.

However, generally the Sykes-Picot agreement influenced a lot of the decisions that the League of Nations made. So these two diplomats made a big impact. It kind of provided a framework for the League while it was deciding on its mandate. The lines were eventually drawn for the territories, which eventually we know will become countries.

And those lines didn't work for everyone. And the issue was controversial. It still is among historians and a lot of people. Were the European nations imperialistic? Did they carve up the Middle East for their own economic gains without adequately consulting local populations? Or did they do adequate research and make moral decisions based on what they do at the time? Honestly, it's up for debate.

From what I could gather from my research, the majority of historians today are not too keen on how the European nations did it. For example, there were entire groups that were promised a country that weren't given one or sometimes groups of people were put together into one territory that did not historically get along, creating a lot of animosity.

Ultimately, the bottom line is that the borders drawn as a result of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the League of Nations mandate system did heavily influence the formation of the nation states in the region today. still being a source of geopolitical tensions. So let's talk about which territories had mandates.

Well, the League of Nations gave mandates to mostly Britain and France over certain territories and Britain received mandates for Palestine, Transjordan, we now call that Jordan, and Iraq. France received mandates for Syria and Lebanon. Some of the Middle Eastern countries had been under British protection before World War I, such as Kuwait. I also think it's important to add that France had great influence on many of the countries in North Africa, such as Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco.

Some of these areas like Saudi Arabia were not part of the mandate system and emerged as independent after World War I. So again, every region was a little bit different, but what's important to know is that some areas of the Middle East were influenced by Europeans. That's what you need to know.

Eventually, each country under a mandate ended up going through some kind of independence process. For example, in 1930 Britain and Iraq signed a treaty that provided a path for its eventual independence. The treaty allowed for them to pass authority to the Iraqi government. And in 1932, Iraq was admitted as a full member of the League of Nations. as an independent country. Syria and Lebanon which were under the French became fully independent in 1946.

Palestine had a British mandate from 1920 to 1948. You'll remember that that ended with... the State of Israel being created. I go over that in depth in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict episode. So you can see that many of these countries, not all but many, gained independence around the time that World War II was ending or not too long after.

This was largely because European powers were exhausted and had a lot of rebuilding to do at the end of World War II, as well as Arab nationalism reaching a new high in many areas. They were tired of European rule, wanted self-governance. Every modern Middle Eastern country has its own unique story. Please look those stories up. But the basic idea here is that the Middle East from 100 years ago didn't look like it does today.

the boundaries were different and the decisions made by the league of nations after world war one when the ottoman empire was dissolved set the stage for a lot of modern geopolitics in the region today What do you do when your toddler melts down or your teen shuts down? I want to introduce you to the Mindful Mama podcast. I'm Hunter Clark Fields, author of Raising Good Humans and your host for

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Now, in the time between the end of World War II, 1945, and today in 2023, a lot has happened in the Middle East, right? And I just want to touch on a few of the biggest historical moments I see in the Middle East that are most brought up when you're doing research or learning current events. So I'm just going to talk briefly about each one just to give you some context. The first one would be the War of Independence, also known as the Nakba. This was 1948.

This conflict established the state of Israel. It created the refugee crisis for the Palestinians. I talk about this in depth in the Palestinian-Israeli episode. Then again, the 1967 Six-Day War. This was between Israel and neighboring Arab nations. That ended with Israel getting even more land. Again, I talk about that in those episodes in depth. And then also the Yom Kippur War or the October War of 1973. This was where Egypt and Syria attacked Israel.

and that one ended in a ceasefire. So let's talk a little bit more about other regions and some of the conflicts that happened there. We have the Iranian Revolution in 1979. This brought in the current regime that still runs Iran today. I talk a lot about that in my Iran 101 episodes. I have three full episodes on Iran.

They are episodes 16, 17, and 18. They really give a deep dive that I think will be critical in the coming months, so do give those a listen. We also have the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. This was when Iraq invaded Iran just shortly after their revolution, and it led to a huge conflict that ended in a stalemate, and I'm going to talk about that in just a minute when I talk about the relationship that those two countries now have.

Shortly after the Iran-Iraq War, there was the first Gulf War. This was 1990-1991. This was when Iraq invaded Kuwait. and a US-led coalition liberated Kuwait pretty quickly. Then in 2001, we have 9-11. This happened on U.S. soil, but it definitely affected the Middle East because it started the War on Terror. The war in Afghanistan, which we're not going to talk about Afghanistan in this episode, but also the Iraq war.

That war lasted between 2003 to 2011. There are lots of distinctive moments in this war between the United States and Iraq, but one of the most significant ones was that The US captured Saddam Hussein, who had been a dictator there for nearly 24 years. Eventually, they turned him over to the Iraqi people, and Saddam Hussein was hung for crimes against humanity. In 2011, that was the beginning of what is called the Arab Spring. This was when there was a large amount of protests and uprisings

seeking for political reform in several Middle Eastern and North African countries. So Arab Spring is just a large amount of protests and uprisings. Most of these were protests against authoritarian governments wanting more freedom in their countries Tunisia and North Africa started it Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, many other countries.

followed suit. In fact, the Syrian war started with the Arab Spring in 2011 and has been going on until present day. It's still happening and ISIS, the terrorist group ISIS, kind of got its footing through the Syrian war and the war against ISIS has also been very significant. Lastly, we have the Yemeni Civil War, which has been going on from 2014 until now. This is between a group of rebels called the Houthis.

who are trying to take down a government that is recognized internationally and is backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. I'll also talk about the Houthis in a second. So I would say those are some of the major points in Middle Eastern history, recent Middle Eastern history, that everybody should generally know. Obviously, there's a lot more than that, right? But those are the main, main points.

Each country has its own unique history and culture and relationships between countries can range from positive to complicated to like intense enemies. Why? That is because there are historical events and differences in political ideologies. There are different terrorist groups. There are border disputes. There are religious differences. And I'm just like barely scratching the surface on that.

And like I said earlier, the majority of people living in the Middle East today are Muslim, right? Believe in the religion of Islam. But that doesn't mean that there aren't different sectarian groups. and that they don't always get along. There are big differences, again, between the beliefs of Sunni and Shia Muslims, and all of this plays into the scene, which makes it very complicated.

So let's talk about relationships between these countries so that when you hear about them on the news, hopefully you feel a little bit more equipped. Now, let's just be clear. All relationships in the Middle East are complicated. All right, they're all complicated. But there are more generally positive complicated relationships. And then there's kind of in the middle, like wildcard relationships. And then there's really negative complicated relationships.

Right. So I'm going to start on the generally more positive end. But really, when it comes to relationships in the Middle East, it's all kind of a wild card. So I'm just going to put that out there, stamp that right away. Let's start with a generally more positive, complicated relationship.

The first would be between Israel and Egypt. In 1978, Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accord. Again, I talk about this in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict episodes if you want to learn more about that. It's a big moment in history, very controversial, because this was when Egypt became the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel. And since then, they have maintained some level of regular diplomatic relations. Likewise, Israel and Jordan...

signed a peace treaty in 1994 formally establishing diplomatic relations. While their relationship isn't always super solid, they do generally have some level of cooperation. Then in 2020 and 2021, the UAE, that stands for United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, all normalized diplomatic relations with Israel in agreements called the Abraham Accord. That's a term to remember because it's being used a lot right now in the news. Abraham Accord.

These were brokered by the United States, so each nation had to do some give and take. I really recommend looking into these, seeing how they happened, what each nation did. state gave and what each state lost. Part of the reason for these normalization of relations is because these countries are not really friendly with Iran. and neither is Israel. So it's kind of in the enemy of my enemy is my friend idea. and

These agreements are significant because for a long time there was Arab consensus that no one would have relations with Israel until a Palestinian state was secured. However, the Abraham Accords happened before that. So it's definitely a shift in typical politics in the region and definitely a controversial one. That's the Abraham Accord.

Now, I think it's safe to say that most Middle Eastern countries are not incredibly friendly with the Iranian regime. However, there are some groups that are friends with Iran, and let's talk about those. These would be positive, complicated relationships. Iran leads something called the axis of resistance, which is basically a loose alliance of groups that oppose what they see as Western, Israeli, and Saudi influence in the Middle East.

So you remember that Iran is a Shia Muslim-majority country, and nearly all of Iran's allies have some kind of Shia tie. For example, in Syria, the current government is run by a dictator called Bashar al-Assad, and he's from a Shia sect. Syria is still in that civil war that started in 2011, so it's been going on for over 12 years now between Bashar al-Assad's government and rebel forces who have demanded more freedoms in Syria, and they were met with force during the Arab Spring.

Iran has supported the dictatorship in Syria in the war and Iran is also friends with Hezbollah which is a Shia militant group that's based in Lebanon. Hezbollah opposes the state of Israel, as does Iran, and so they have this in common. Iran also supports various Shia militias in Iraq. It also supports Hamas, which is the governing body of the Gaza Strip, and is generally seen by most international communities as a terrorist group.

Lastly, it also supports a Shia rebel group in Yemen. Again, that's the Houthis who oppose Saudi influence in Yemen. Okay, so those are the more complicated positive relations in the Middle East. Now let's talk about kind of the middle ground complicated relations.

Let's start with Iraq and Iran. So a little background history here. Again, in 1968 Saddam Hussein took control of Iraq. Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq for again about 24 years. And in 1980, Iraq attacked Iran, which led to an eight-year brutal conflict between the two countries. It ended in a stalemate. It killed hundreds of thousands of people, possibly a million. And Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons in that war. So again, the toll was enormous.

Since then, Iraq and Iran have some interests that do align. And they sometimes align and they sometimes do not. There are times when Iraq supports Iran, other times when it doesn't. They share a really long border and they both have large Shia Muslim populations and they do trade with each other. So that's a complicated kind of middle relationship. Another one is between Syria and Lebanon. Kind of complicated relationships there. They don't always get along.

Same with Iraq and Saudi Arabia. They have not always been friends, especially during Saddam Hussein's reign. But there have been some efforts to improve relations, so we'll kind of see how that goes. If I'm being totally honest, a lot of the Middle Eastern countries have complicated relations with Iraq and Iran. And if you just know that from the start, it could just help you have a clearer vision as you watch current events go down.

Okay, let's now talk about enemies. So countries that do not generally get along. The first would be Israel and Iran. Iran and Israel are no go. Iran does not recognize Israel's right to exist at all. It continues to support Hamas and other militant groups in Israel and around Israel, such as Hezbollah and Lebanon. Of all of the Middle Eastern countries, Iran is seen as generally the greatest existential threat to Israel because it has nuclear capabilities.

So the reason why you hear so much about Iran in current events today is because Israel has seen Iran as a major threat since the 1990s. And Iran has made its objection to Israel's existence very, very clear. Because of that, you can see that the countries who do have diplomatic ties with Israel, you know, the countries that we were just talking about, Egypt, Jordan, the countries in the Abraham Accords, They don't have good relationships with Iran either.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are also not friendly. They are regional rivals. They kind of represent Sunni and Shia Muslim majority countries respectively. They have been involved in various proxy conflicts across the Middle East. As I'm recording this again, October 2023, the U.S. was working very hard on getting a normalization treaty worked out between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

From what I can see, it's kind of been put on hold since the Hamas-Israel war. I'm sure more will come out about that, so I'm keeping an eye out for it. I think it is very safe to assume, however, that Iran does not want Israel to become friends with Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia is one of Iran's enemies, right? the UAE and part of Yemen, Israel and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. They're all pretty strongly anti Iran.

Okay, let's stop there for just a second. That was a lot. So let's review. Basically, there are quite a few Arab countries who have normalized relations with Israel. Some of them very recently. A lot of controversy around that. Iran is either not friends or has complicated relationships with most countries in the Middle East at this time.

But it does help various groups within some of those countries, like it gives them funds and helps them in their causes, like in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen. And you know, these friendships are subject to change. The politics of the region do shift fairly often. However, I think it is important groundwork to just

Understand that these relationships are complicated. The Middle East cannot be grouped into just one mass that all agree with each other because that's just false, right?

There are some groups in the Middle East that are also helpful to know about that are just groupings of Middle Eastern countries. So I want to just briefly go over some of those. The first is the Arab League. You may have heard this term before. The Arab League is basically a regional organization as 22 member states in the Arab world. It says its aim is to promote economic, cultural, and political cooperation among its members. It does not have a military force.

Then there's the GCC states. This stands for Gulf Cooperation Council. Basically, this is the Gulf monarchies. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar. They have an alliance to work together for economic advantages, security, stability in the Gulf region. Some of these countries are among the richest in the world due to their petroleum reserves, but they do absolutely work together. They also have their own regional rivalries and alliances between them that lead to tensions, right?

There's also a last one I want to talk about is OPEC, O-P-E-C. This stands for Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Country. Now, it's comprised of 12 countries that work together to coordinate petroleum policies right now the middle eastern countries in that group are iran iraq kuwait libya saudi arabia and the uae i guess libya is in north africa but you get it

So you can see how this gets a bit complicated, right? They work together when it comes to oil, but they disagree on other matters of policy. There are other countries around the world who are also a part of OPEC, but what's important to know is that half of OPEC... is comprised of Middle Eastern countries that work together on coordinating petroleum policy.

Okay, let's stop there. I hope that this gave you a little primer on how the modern Middle East came to be, how they relate to each other. Now, I've seen so many people assume that everyone in the Middle East agrees with each other. But these are complex countries with complex histories and relations are likely to change and morph throughout our lifetimes. But knowing a little bit can be so helpful, especially as you're watching current events.

If you're looking for more information that could be helpful in navigating things right now, I recommend a refresh on Iran. Again, episode 16, 17, 18, as well as a refresh on government systems. That's episode 26. And as much as I enjoy these studies, my next episode is going to be a fun one. I have to break up the heavy hitter episodes, right?

That will be coming at the end of November. To support the podcast, please click subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app right now so that when a new episode drops, You just know right away. You can also support me on patreon.com slash wiserworldpodcast. Again, you get resources and you also get to help me pick future episode topics. So if you learned anything in this episode, please share it with someone you know. And thank you for listening. Let's go make the world a little wiser.