United Arab Emirates Country Profile Essay Example for Free

United Arab Emirates Country Profile Essay The Middle East stirs interest because of its important historical and contemporary role in global affairs. The region caught the interest of the United States only during the Second World War but the region has hosted and witnessed significant world events. Many of the early civilizations emerged from the region such as the Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations. Influential religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism developed in the Middle East. The region also formed part of various empires, in succession, as territorial control changed from the Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Mongol, Tatar empires and then to the Turkish empire. The succession of empires led to the fusion of civilisations and cultures leading to various radical changes in the region and human history. (Peretz 1994) During the middle ages, Europe took interest in the Middle East in opening pilgrimage paths to the Holy Land through the Crusades. This increased trade with Western European countries and opened contact of the Middle East with Asia. Napoleon occupied parts of Palestine in the hopes of defeating the British Indian Empire growing in Asia. These expressed recognition of the region’s value as Europe’s gateway to the greater Asian region. Tsarist Russia also moved southward in attempts to take control of Iran and Turkey. (Peretz 1994) With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Suez Canal trading route opened opportunities for various European countries establishing interest in the Middle East. Competing interests fuelled various wars and diplomatic conferences to settle control of the Turkish Straits. Nazi Germany also sought to gain a foothold into the Middle East and then into Asia. During the First and Second World Wars, weapons and supplies passed through the trading routes of the Middle East. In the 1940s, the Middle East gained more importance with the discovery of its vast oil reserves, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. The Middle East gained strategic value not only for its trading routes but also for its massive oil resources. Many foreign companies sought concessions to extract oil from the region. Oil exports supported the growth of industries in European countries and the United States since at least eighty percent of oil consumed in these western regions came from the Middle East. In the early 1960s, the states comprising the Arabian Peninsula and Iran produced one-quarter of the total global oil production with an unknown volume of reserves. During the Cold War, the clashing ideological interests sought to capture the acquiescence of the Middle East, with Russia exerting pressure from the north and the United States exerting pressure from the west. (Peretz 1994) Due to these events, the Middle East became an important region in world affairs. Middle East is the regional name given by Western European states to the block of territory located at the South Western border of Asia, North Eastern border of Africa, and Western border of South Asia. As a collective term, Middle East is a large region comprised of the countries Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. This area, previously called Far East, is located in between the European and East Asian regions. The term also connotes countries sharing a predominantly Islamic culture. (â€Å"Middle East† 2007)