What’s happening in the Middle East and why it matters

It’s not like this uneasiness is concentrated only in one country, or all for a common reason. There’s Islamic extremism, political turnover, faltering oil prices and, let’s not forget, age-old sectarian tensions that are contributing in different ways in different places to the tumult.

Many countries in the region have issues, such as Egypt’s delicate political and human rights situation and Turkey’s dealing with the impact of the war raging right over its border in Syria. Still, a few stand out because of the unique — some might say intractable — challenges they face.

YEMEN

What’s going on

Chaos is one way to describe it.

The country’s government is in a shambles. Violence — some of it sectarian, some of it thanks to militancy from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) — has been raging nationwide for months, if not years. And it’s far and away the poorest nation in the region, with a per capita GDP of $1,473, according to the World Bank. (Compare that with Saudi Arabia’s $25,962.)

Let’s start with the still unfolding political crisis. Yemen’s President and Prime Minister abruptly resigned Thursday after Houthi rebels — Shiite Muslims who have long felt marginalized in the majority Sunni country — moved on the capital, Sana’a.

How Yemen’s new government will look is still unclear, if it’s going to have a functioning government at all. If the Houthis take the lead, that would mean Shiites ruling a country that’s mostly Shiite. While the Houthis and previous government both fought against al Qaeda, this instability can only help that terror group. And none of this is helping the average Yemeni stuck in poverty, with little time, money or effort seemingly focused on improving their straits or the economy as a whole.

Why it matters to the West and beyond

For the rest of the world, political stability is a good thing for any country in this region; on the flip side, instability is always a concern. There’s also the fact that Yemen has enough oil and natural gas for its people and export, though unrest makes it challenging to tap into these resources, the U.S. Energy Information Administration notes.

All those worries and impacts are real. But, for the West, it’s about AQAP.

Ever since Osama bin Laden was flushed out of Afghanistan, the terrorist organization he founded has spread out and evolved. Rather than one overarching entity, al Qaeda is now more of an association of groups — each with its own goals, even if they all share a philosophy of lashing out at the West and promoting their extreme brand of Islam.

And of those, AQAP is widely considered the most dangerous to the West.

It’s the only al Qaeda affiliate to send terrorists from Yemen to the United States. There was Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, better known as “the underwear bomber” for his attempt to blow up a commercial airliner on a Detroit-bound flight in December 2009. Then there are the suspects in the deadly Boston Marathon bombings and Nidal Hassan, who reportedly were inspired by American-born cleric and top AQAP figure Anwar al-Awlaki.

The violence has died down since then, but it hasn’t gone away. There was a November attack at a Jerusalem synagogue that killed four worshipers and a police officer. An Israeli soldier was stabbed to death on a Tel Aviv street, with another killed at a West Bank hitchhiking post. Many Palestinians have been caught up in everything as well, like a senior Palestinian Authority official who died after a confrontation with Israeli troops.

No 3rd intifada yet — but few signs of hope, either

Meanwhile, there’s an election coming up in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is contending to stay in the office he’s held since 2009, hoping to convince voters that he’s the right person to address a faltering economy, recent attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem and this summer’s inconclusive war against Hamas.

In fact, he’s taking his appeal on the road to the United States. House Speaker John Boehner has invited Netanyahu to speak to Congress on March 3.

But he won’t be meeting with Obama then, a fact that some see as the latest evidence of the reportedly frosty relationship between the two leaders.

Why it matters to the West and beyond

Israel is important to the United States for a few reasons.

Some of that has to do with the countries’ common democratic ideals. There is also the shared strategic and security interests, as it is no coincidence that many of Israel’s foes (like ISIS or Iran) are also U.S. enemies. And there’s a political component as well, with many in the United States valuing the country’s relationship with Israel — and sometimes poking their political opponents claiming they’re not sufficiently supportive.

If the leaders of these two longtime allies aren’t on the same page, that could be a problem.

Obama won’t personally meet with Netanyahu during his next visit, because, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “we want to avoid even the appearance of any kind of interference with a democratic election” on March 17.

Then there’s the prospect that Netanyahu will press for stronger sanctions on Iran. This thrusts him into the U.S. political fray, since the Iran talks have pitted Obama against Republicans and Democrats alike.

This visit certainly won’t help mend what Aaron David Miller, a former U.S.-Middle East peace negotiator, has described as “a dysfunctional relationship between Netanyahu and Obama.”

As a senior official with a prominent pro-Israel policy organization in Washington said last fall: “These guys don’t like each other. They don’t pretend to like each other.”

CNN