Top 10 People that Most Changed the Middle East for the Worse

People, both from within and outside the Middle East, who contributed to negative changes in the region.
The Top Ten
Osama Bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن, romanized: Usāma bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin. March 10, 1957 - May 2, 2011) was a stateless terrorist, born in Saudi Arabia... read more
Ruhollah Khomeini Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini, known in the Western world as Ayatollah Khomeini, was an Iranian Shia Islam religious leader and politician.

Real dictator.

Muhammad Muhammad ibn Abdullah (570 AD - 632 AD) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of the world religion of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet, divinely inspired to preach and confirm the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets... read more
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi was the leader of the Salafi jihadist militant terrorist organisation known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region—which... read more

How is this guy not on here? He publicly killed thousands of civilians and even had people telling him to go to hell when he was being hanged.

Ali Khamenei Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei (born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia Marja' and the second and current supreme leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously the third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is the longest serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest... read more
Yasser Arafat
Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, born on July 11, 1965, is a Syrian politician who served as the 19th President of Syria from July 17, 2000, until December 8, 2024, when his government was overthrown by Syrian rebels. He was also the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces, General Secretary of the ruling... read more
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, television personality, politician, and the 45th and 47th President of the United States... read more

I'm sorry if this seems like another overload of Donald Trump criticism, but in a way, I can't say he's really done more good than bad for the Middle East. He decided to proclaim Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and while I can see that this isn't inherently evil, this decision has only caused more turmoil between Israel and Palestine.

Mohammed Omar Mullah Muhammad Omar was an Afghan militant leader and cleric who founded the Taliban in 1994. During the Third Afghan Civil War, the Taliban fought the Northern Alliance and took control of most of Afghanistan, establishing the First Islamic Emirate. Omar served as Supreme Leader from 1996... read more

The Newcomers

? Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
? Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is an Israeli politician serving as the 9th and current Prime Minister of Israel since 2009, previously holding the position from 1996 to 1999.
The Contenders
Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as secretary of defense.
Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney, generally known as Dick Cheney is an American politician and businessman who was the 46th Vice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009, under President George W. Bush.

The devil himself!

Hassan Nasrallah
Hafez al-Assad
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who is the president of Russia, a position he has filled since 2012, and previously from 2000 until 2008. He was also the prime minister from 1999 to 2000, and again from 2008 to 2012... read more
Herod the Great
Ibn Saud
Temür
Juhayman al-Otaybi

"Saudi King Khaled, however, did not react to the upheaval by cracking down on religious puritans in general, but by giving the ulama and religious conservatives more power over the next decade. He is thought to have believed that the solution to the religious upheaval was simple: more religion. First, photographs of women in newspapers were banned, then women on television. Cinemas and music shops were shut down. The school curriculum was changed to provide many more hours of religious studies, eliminating classes on subjects like non-Islamic history. Gender segregation was extended to the humblest coffee shop. The religious police became more assertive." ~ Wikipedia, Grand Mosque Seizure via Aftermath via Policies.

Once I read that, I had to put him in the top three on the list.

Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
Amin al-Husseini
Omar al-Bashir Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir is a Sudanese politician who served as the seventh president of Sudan and head of the National Congress Party from 1989 to 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d'état. He was incarcerated, tried, and convicted of multiple corruption charges.
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger was an American diplomat, political scientist, geopolitical consultant, and politician. He served as the United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor in the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford between 1969 and 1977.
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Mark Sykes
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