THE PECULIARITIES OF GEOPOLITICAL PROCESSES IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Today, the Islamic factor and its influence in the system international relations are growing. Analyses of the changes taking place in world politics show that one of the most The article is divided into two parts. The first part is related to the growing importance of the Islamic factor; the demographic growth of believers, the economic, scientific and political development of Muslim countries; the politicization of Islam and the recent events in the Arab countries. The second part describes the concept of geopolitics, various definitions of the Middle East countries by different political schools, and shows the position of the countries such as the United States, China and Russia, which play an important role in the geopolitical formation of the region. Over the past two centuries, the Middle East has been an important target of various external forces. The peculiarity of the geopolitical situation in the region is that external forces skillfully used religious denominations and interethnic contradictions in the region. Recently, the geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalry of these external forces in their own interests has aggravated the situation in the region. For examples, the Arab Spring, the armed conflict in Syria and Yemen, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and current relations between the United States and Ira