Middle East Wars Are Still About Oil and Empire
Gilbert Achcar explains how oil, US power, and regional rivalries have shaped decades of conflict in the Middle East — and why the confrontation with Iran fits a long imperial pattern.
Fire breaks out at the Shahran oil depot in Tehran, Iran, after US and Israeli attacks on March 8, 2026. (Hassan Ghaedi / Anadolu via Getty Images)
Why has the Middle East been so consistently wracked by war? In an interview with Jacobin contributing editor Bashir Abu-Manneh, political economist Gilbert Achcar argues that the answer lies above all in the region’s central place in the global oil economy and the strategies of great powers seeking to control it. Achcar discusses the logic of US intervention, the limits of the US-Israel alliance, Iran’s strategy in the current conflict, and the regional consequences of Washington’s evolving imperial doctrine.
Bashir Abu-Manneh
It is impossible to talk about the Middle East without talking about war. It’s probably the region most ruptured by war in the post-1945 era. In the last decade and a half alone, many Arab uprisings devolved into prolonged civil wars. Not to mention Israel’s forever war against the Palestinians. Why do you think war is so prevalent in the region?
Gilbert Achcar
There is no doubt that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is, of all world regions, the one that has witnessed the highest number of armed conflicts since 1945, with an impressive number of interstate wars and foreign expeditions. The latter category increased exponentially after the USSR’s collapse, when the United States felt free to intervene in the region starting from the 1991 war against Iraq. Russia followed suit under Vladimir Putin, starting from its intervention to shore up the Syrian regime in 2015.
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