Mayhem in the Middle East.

• Author: Pazzanese, Christina
• Position: Worldview

BLOODY conflicts and civil wars bedevil Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen; diplomatic ties have frayed between the U.S. and Israel over Iran and the Occupied Territories; and the terrorist group Islamic State, or ISIS, is proving durable in its brutal campaign to create a caliphate in Syria, Iraq, and beyond. It is a time of historic political, social, and military transformation in the region and one that is likely to continue, indicate analysts from Harvard University.

"It's about the most complex and difficult and challenging policy environment that I've seen in 30 years in the Middle East," relates Nicholas Bums, former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and professor of the practice of diplomacy and international politics.

"I think you would have to go back to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I; the creation of the modern Middle East; the creation of Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon; the introduction of the League of Nations' mandates for Palestine; to find another time that was so turbulent.

"Three states are in absolute free-fall, where the national government has either disintegrated or is embattled. Libya has fallen apart as a nation-state; it's back to tribal divisions. Syria is in the midst of the most brutal civil war in the world today. In Yemen, the government has been defeated. There's now an all-out battle for control of Yemen between an Iranian-backed movement and a Saudi/U.S.-backed movement.

"What we're also witnessing is the Sunni world in crisis. So, Syria, a country dominated in terms of its population by the Sunni, is divided by a tremendous, brutal humanitarian crisis. More than half the people in the country are homeless," continues Bums.

"Egypt and Jordan, two very strong moderate Sunni states, are both confronting substantial internal crises to the continuation of their countries. Saudi Arabia is at the beginning of a transition from one king to another. The rise of the Islamic State, which now controls about one-third of Syria and one-third of Iraq, has divided both countries, and its barbaric practices have created a struggle for power in the Sunni world.

"In addition," notes Bums, "we're looking at a Sunni/Shia battle for power and influence, and we see that in the extraordinary spread of Iranian power just over the last [several] months. Iran, now the kingmaker in Baghdad, is more influential than the U.S.," and there is "a crisis in the U.S.-Israel relationship of the...