When will lasting peace ever come to the Middle East?

Middle East has taxed my brain most of my life. It was the first region I learned about even before going to school. Thanks to the Bible and Sunday school. Later, through history, I learned it’s the origin of two of the World’s leading religions: Christianity and Islam.

Add oil, and the region never gets out of the headlines.

Why should the region hosting two of the world's holiest cities, Mecca and Jerusalem, be embroiled in war and violence, yet all religions preach peace? Let’s add that Iran also has holy cities, Mashhad and Qom.

In Africa, and Kenya to be specific, such holy cities may emerge in future going by the number of religious shrines cropping up owned by different denominations and near mountains, just like our traditional religions. Did I hear of a mountain being contested by traditionalists and modern religious groups somewhere in Nandi?  

Back to the Middle East, once the epicentre of crusades and jihads. What is the bone of contention now? The Crusades and jihads were about conversion and ownership of the holy city of Jerusalem. But land, wealth and trade were other factors. The poor looked for escape from drudgery and sins during the Crusades, with promised indulgences. 

Today, land is still an issue as Palestinians and Israelis fight over the holy land. The land has deep spiritual significance.  Anyone who has read the Bible can attest to that. The fight is complicated further by external forces like Iran's support for Palestinians.

They use proxies like Hezbollah to fight Israel, which uses devastating force to protect its borders and citizens.

The fight over land makes me support space exploration; we could get an empty habitable planet and settle “excess” population like Europeans in Australia and the US, and the consequences thereof.

Iran sees Israel as a rival for dominance in the Middle East. This is complicated by different religions and the fact that the US is an ally of Israel. America and Iran have been enemies since 1979, when a regime hostile to the US took power (the Iranian Revolution), and Iran became a theocracy.

Religion again. To what extent has religion kept Iran intact, just like Anglicanism for the British Empire or Hinduism for the Indian Civilisation?

The US, Israel and Iran rivalry sucks in other countries; they support either Israel / USA or Iran.  The US supports Israel and Gulf nations, while Iran uses proxies, which makes the wars and chaos in the Middle East very asymmetric and prolonged. 

The recent war pitting Israel and the United States against Iran exposed the alignments. Iran attacked the neighbours aligned with the US and Israel, who felt the economic pains of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz through lost fuel revenues and tourism. Was that boldness or recklessness?

Later, Iran extended its hand to another proxy, the Houthis in Yemen, who have brazenly attacked Saudi Arabia, a US ally and also disrupted maritime traffic, including oil, along the Red Sea.

America and Israel have paused their war against Iran just before their leaders faced elections. Will fighting resume after the polls? How has Iran reacted to the polls?

A bigger question is whether peace will ever come to the Middle East.  The whole world is paying the price of chaos in the Middle East with higher oil prices.

Will this, as we had predicted, force more countries to seek peace? One lesson from the Middle East violence is clear: despite advances in technology and economic growth, we remain human with our prejudices and ideologies, some with deep historical and religious roots. 

Other wars end when one party is defeated. But in the Middle East, most wars end in stalemates, unfinished, with embers smouldering in the background, fired by ideologies and religious differences. Remember World War II?

Let's think without a box; would the drying up of oil wells bring peace to the Middle East? Will shifting to electric cars bring peace to the Middle East?

Would negotiations work? What of the permanence of religion?

It seems there is always a reason for a fight in the Middle East, from religion to colonialism, geo-economics and contests for power and influence.

One hopes the region will one day run out of reasons for fighting. When will that be? Religious believers talk of the Second Coming.

My concern is that if the US distances itself from this region, other powers will get sucked in, prolonging instability. Who supports Iran? Which other powers have economic and political tentacles reaching out into the Middle East?

Would the Middle East be more peaceful if its countries were left to sort their issues by themselves? Think of Vietnam? Afghanistan? Syria? 

Let us ask one more time: will the long shadow of violence ever shorten in the Middle East? We are stakeholders; if you doubt, check the oil prices in the last five years and the erosion of your purchasing power in the same period. Got a solution? Talk to us.