>>/54773/
cont.

The Middle East is one such a hub. Probably the most important of all, the meeting point of Europe, Africa, and Asia. The Brits spent literally hundreds of years to establish their presence and control there. They established trading companies (most notably the Levant Company) not just to conduct trade but to build ties with the Ottomans, who ruled those lands. And as the Ottos started to decline they propped them up, with money, advice, training and weapons just like how the US props up her clients... then as they started to crumble they took over areas and when they sided with the Central Powers and defied the Anglo they broke the empire of the Turks up. They gained control in Egypt, Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq, Gulf, South Arabia, Aden.

The US inherited the agenda, and after WWII the UK had to understand they are not the Anglo global empire anymore. Lo by today all the listed areas are US clients except "South Arabia" - ie Yemen with the Houthis. The US was forward enough about it. The 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine is all about it:
[the U.S.would] cooperate with and assist any nation or group of nations in the general area of the Middle East in the development of economic strength dedicated to the maintenance of national independence ... [and] undertake in the same region programs of military assistance and cooperation with any nation or group of nations which desires such aid.
(quote from the US Foreign Policy in Perspective: Clients, Enemies and Empire)