The roots of total change in wars zone in the Middle East

During the 64 years between 1948 and 2011, the geography of war in the Middle East has undergone a major transformation. Between 1948 and 1980, for 32 years, the wars in the Middle East surrounded Israel. During these years, and as a result of the four Israeli wars—in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973— which involved Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon, the outlook in the east of the Middle East was strained, militaristic, and critical. However, since the 1979 Camp David Agreement, Israel’s surroundings quickly became more peaceful. Thereafter, as a result of four total wars in the last 32 years, the Persian Gulf has become the Middle East’s, and even the world’s, war zone. The atmosphere of the regions surrounding this small body of water is strained and critical as a result of the 1980-1988 Iraqi war against Iran (the Imposed War), Iraq’s lightning attack on Kuwait in August 1990, the US-led massive attack on Iraq in 1991, and the US and Britain’s invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This paper, which is a part of a bigger project, attempts to find an adequate explanation of this massive strategic transformation. It first reviews the previous studies on this warzone transformation, and utilizes political ecology, as a newly emerged interdisciplinary approach, in attempting to discover the causes of this change in the geography of war in the Middle East.