The Strategos

“Did the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 do any good for the Middle East or the world?” This is the question that still haunts the USA and breeds serious doubts on the credibility of the US as a responsible superpower. The series of events that have followed the US invasion have been far from those expected. The unstable nature of the region in the recent decades can well be seen as after-effects of what US did in Iraq. The reasons given by the US for invading a sovereign nation far from its borders have been far from convincing. Nonetheless, the significant effects the invasion has had on Iraq in particular and the region at large have not diminished in the last decade.   The world has changed a lot since USA first got involved in Iraq with an aim to rescue Kuwait. What has remained same is one of the primary causes of the problems the region struggles with at present that can be backtracked to what US did in 2003. Following the defeat of Iraq and the restoration of Kuwaiti gove...

The term Middle East originated in British India offices in 1850s and became famous after US Naval strategist Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan started using the term in his research papers. As of now, Middle East is used interchangeably with Near East. The term is said to have originated because of the region’s distance from the European cities of London and Paris. From an Asian perspective, however, it is the region located on the Western periphery of the continent. It also includes the states in the Northern belt of the African Continent. The term ‘broader middle east’ gained ground after the 9/11 attack to add the territories of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Middle Eastern framework. Middle East has been home to the cradle of civilizations, the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations developed in this very region on the banks of mighty rivers such as Nile, Tigris and Euphrates. It is also the birth place of three of the most prominent religions followed around the world namely Ch...