"MENA Region" is a term used to describe the North African region and the Middle East. It’s a vast region that stretches right from morocco to most of the Middle East countries. The military, business planners and academicians are the ones who mostly use the term MENA in their activities to describe this region giving it a unique distinction from other regions of the world. This part of the world is different from other regions because it is rich in natural resources like oil that are not found anywhere else. This is the Arab world because the main language spoken here is Arabic, this in turn indicates that the Islamic religion is prevalent here except in a few states like Israel.
The region comprises of a number of countries from Africa like Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. the majority of its countries are from Asia and the include the close African neighbors Israel, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Jordan and spreads further to Kuwait, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen and Qatar. Other countries have also being included in this region both from the Asian and African region, though they are considered not to be as close as the others. They include Somalia, Sudan, Turkey, Armenia, Cyprus, Djibouti, Malta, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Some of the countries are politically stable while most of them have faced countless problems now and then with uprisings that have nearly torn them apart. In the recent times the Libyan leader, Gadhafi, was gunned down in a bid to overthrow his government which many considered to be dictatorial, though he had ensured that every citizen lived a comfortable life with free education and medical care. Syria is another country that is facing political unrest due to a civil. Rebels are trying hard to overthrow the government which has used brutal force in retaliation that has seen many innocent deaths. The UN toll is it at 70000 Syrians and countless internal refugees.
Sometime back there were similar problems in Iraq and the controversial leader Saddam Hussein was forced out of power and later hanged. There is always tension among countries in this region with fears of nuclear warfare especially on the Asian side. Palestine and Israel have always been at war. Iran and Israel don't see eye to eye with repeated threats of attack. Religion is the main contributor to this political tensions and it is basically the Jews vs. the Muslims and vice versa. Other countries are peaceful
The Libyan neighbors Egypt also have a good economy thus she cannot be compared to other African and Asian nations. Her people are well fed because she has good agricultural practices that enabled her to export the surplus. She has also suffered with uprisings and demonstrations against the government. Similar to Egypt in terms of agriculture is Israeli where the living standards can only be compared to western countries. United Arab Emirates has one of the best economies due to oil that she supplies to the world at large. Arabia is also relatively peaceful and has a great economy attributed to oil.
It has been said that the west has tried in vain to gain control of the MENA region because of its natural resources, those involved disguising themselves in democratic movements - the truth is yet to be known. The west has helped in overthrowing leaders from power who were considered to be dictators. It has helped to stabilize some of the worst hit countries like Iraq where the people lived in misery yet they had the most precious commodity which is oil. NATO overthrew the Libyan leader who had denied his people democracy. The United States has tried to negotiate the Israel - Palestine case and there is progress in the attainment of peace between these two neighbors.
