Middle East Wars Are Still About Oil and Empire
What’s really behind Trump’s war on Iran?
(Atta Kenare / AFP / 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.
Bashir Abu-Manneh
It is impossible to talk about the Middle East without talking about war. Why do you think war, like the kind we’re seeing right now, 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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