10 things you need to know about the Middle East Part 2: everyone has a hard time understanding the world's most volatile and complicated region. Here are the basics from Ethan Bronner, former Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times.

• Author: Bronner, Ethan
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

The Middle East isn't just a lesson in a history textbook. The conflicts that rage there are vital to our current and future interests.

Part 2 of 10 Things You Need to Know About the Middle East looks at more issues that are central to understanding what's going on in the region: women's oppression, conflict between Iran and the U.S., Israeli democracy, America's relationship with Saudi Arabia, and the impact of the Arab Spring.

Part 1 of the article (Upfront, Sept. 3) covered:

1. What is the Middle East?

2. Who are the Sunnis and Shiites?

3. Why can't the Israelis and Palestinians make peace?

4. Is it all about oil?

5. Why does the Arab world have so many dictators?

6 Are women, more oppressed m the Arab world than elsewhere?

Arab nations are among the very worst in the world in terms of women's freedom, according to a United Nations report. More than half of Arab women are illiterate. The percentage of women who die in childbirth is double that of Latin America and four times that of East Asia.

In most Arab countries, women have very limited rights. They are dependent on their fathers or husbands to carry out basic activities like opening a bank account or getting a passport. In most Arab countries, divorce and inheritance laws favor men. In Saudi Arabia, women are banned from driving. Few women have political power.

The role of women in a society is important not only because it affects half the population directly, but also because it's a key indicator of a country's overall health and success. In countries where women are more equal, there's greater productivity and democracy. As a result, one of the big challenges for the Arab world is providing power and opportunity to women. "Society as a whole suffers when a huge proportion of its productive potential is stifled," notes the U.N. report.

Westerners are often upset when they see women in the region covered head-to-toe. But how Arab women dress is not necessarily an indicator of how much power and freedom they enjoy. Other restrictions--like Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving--are meaningful but not as important as political rights.

"For me, the struggle is not about driving a car but about being in the driver's seat of our destiny," says Manal al-Sharif, a Saudi women's rights activist.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof says that injustice against women is the central moral challenge of the 21st century. Fighting against gender inequity is also practical, he says; because it has positive effects on many other social and economic problems.

7 Why does Iran seem to hate the U.S.?

The tensions can be traced to two dates: 1953 and 1979. In 1953, America's C.I.A. engineered a coup in Iran, reinstalling Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was friendly to the U.S. Then in 1979, an Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah, and a mob of Iranians took over the U.S. embassy in the capital, Tehran, holding 66 Americans hostage for 444 days.

Since then, neither country has had an embassy in the other. Each suspects the other of seeking to undermine its government and way of life. Iran sometimes calls the U.S. "the great Satan." The U.S. and its allies complain that Iran supports terrorist groups like...