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Middle East
The Middle East is a transcontinental region which includes Western Asia, and all of Turkey and Egypt. The term has come into wider usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. The broader concept of the "Greater Middle East" also adds the Maghreb, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and sometimes even Central Asia and Transcaucasia into the region. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski was a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. Brzezinski belonged to the realist school of international relations, standing in the geopolitical tradition of Halford Mackinder and Nicholas J. Spykman. Brzezinski was the primary organizer of The Trilateral Commission.
Arab world
The Arab world, also known as the Arab nation, the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, consists of the 22 Arabic-speaking countries which are members of the Arab League. These countries are located in Western Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa, while the southernmost member, the Comoros, is an island country off the coast of East Africa. The region stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Indian Ocean in the southeast. Arabic is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world.
History of the Middle East
Home to the Cradle of Civilization, the Middle East—interchangeable with the Near East—has seen many of the world's oldest cultures and civilizations. This history started from the earliest human settlements, continuing through several major pre- and post-Islamic Empires through to the nation-states of the Middle East today.
Democracy in the Middle East and North Africa
According to the Democracy Index 2016 study, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, while Tunisia is the only democracy in North Africa. The measure of the level of democracy in nations throughout the world published by Freedom House and various other freedom indices, the Middle Eastern and North African countries with the highest scores are Israel, Tunisia, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan and Kuwait. Countries that are occasionally classified as partly democratic are Egypt and Iraq. The remaining countries of the Middle East are categorized as authoritarian regimes, with the lowest scores held by Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Middle Eastern studies
Middle Eastern studies is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the history, culture, politics, economies, and geography of the Middle East, an area that is generally interpreted to cover a range of nations including Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman. It is considered a form of area studies, taking an overtly interdisciplinary approach to the study of a region. In this sense Middle Eastern studies is a far broader and less traditional field than classical Islamic studies.
MENA
MENA is an English-language acronym referring to the Middle East and North Africa, which corresponds to the Greater Middle East. Another name for the same group of countries is WANA. The term covers an extensive region stretching from Morocco in the west to Pakistan in the east. The population of the MENA region, at its least extent, is estimated to be about 381 million. This constitutes about 6% of the total world population. The MENA acronym is often used in academia, military planning, disaster relief, media planning as a broadcast region, and business writing.
U.S.–Middle East Free Trade Area
The U.S.–MEFTA initiative started in 2003 with the purpose of creating a U.S.–Middle East Free Trade Area by 2013.
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
The Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), also known as the Bureau of Near East Asian Affairs, is an agency of the Department of State within the United States government that deals with U.S. foreign policy and diplomatic relations with the nations of the Near East. It is headed by the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who reports to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
The Grand Chessboard
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997) is one of the major works of Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski graduated with a PhD from Harvard University in 1953 and became Professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University. He was later the United States National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981, under the administration of President Jimmy Carter.
Daniel Levy (political analyst)
Daniel Levy is an Israeli political scientist, policy advisor, and diplomat. He is the president of the Middle East Project. From 2012 to 2016, he was Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to that he was a senior Fellow and Director of the New America Foundation's Middle East Taskforce in Washington, D.C. and a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation. Earlier he worked as an analyst for the International Crisis Group's Middle East Program.
Arab Peace Initiative
The Arab Peace Initiative, also known as the "Saudi Initiative", is a 10 sentence proposal for an end to the Arab–Israeli conflict that was endorsed by the Arab League in 2002 at the Beirut Summit and re-endorsed at the 2007 Arab League summit and at the 2017 Arab League summit. The initiative calls for normalizing relations between the Arab region and Israel, in exchange for a full withdrawal by Israel from the occupied territories and a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN Resolution 194. The Initiative was initially overshadowed by the Passover Massacre, a major terrorist attack that took place on March 27, 2002, the day before the Initiative was published.
2007 Arab League summit
The 2007 Arab League Summit, also called the 2007 Riyadh Summit, refers to a convention of leaders from 21 members of the Arab League who gathered in Riyadh for the 19th Arab summit in March 2007. The summit convened on the 28 March 2007 and was preceded by a set of preparatory meetings starting on 24 March 2007. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana also attended the summit. The main goal of the conference was to re-launch the Arab Peace Initiative.
Middle East Partnership Initiative
The U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) is a United States State Department program that fosters meaningful and effective partnerships between citizens, civil society, the private sector, and governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to resolve local challenges and promote shared interests in the areas of participatory governance and economic opportunity and reform.
American democracy promotion in the Middle East and North Africa
American democracy promotion in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) aims to encourage governmental and non-governmental actors in the region to pursue political reforms that will lead ultimately to democratic governance. As an area of the world vital to American interests yet generally entrenched in non-democratic, authoritarian rule, MENA has been the subject of increasing interest on the part of the American government and democracy promoters, particularly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, with many viewing democratic transition as essential to regional stability and international security.
Middle East economic integration
Policies advocating Middle East economic integration aim to bring about peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East, which they believe can only be sustained over the long run via regional economic cooperation.