The Oil Curse

The Black Curse: Oil, Imperialism, and the Truncated Destiny of the Middle East 

Between the late 19th century and the mid-1950s, the Middle East was tragically reshaped by the insatiable Western demand for oil and the ruthless pursuit of imperial dominance. The decline of the Ottoman Empire opened a geopolitical vacuum, swiftly filled by European powers like Britain and France, later joined by the United States. Through clandestine agreements like Sykes-Picot, exploitative concessions such as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's 86% share, and overt interventions, including the 1953 Iranian coup, these powers carved up the region, drew arbitrary borders, and propped up compliant autocracies. This era of energy greed and strategic maneuvering created artificial states like Iraq, suppressed indigenous self-determination for groups like the Kurds, and sowed the seeds of enduring ethnic, sectarian, and political instability. The legacy of this period is a Middle East perpetually grappling with the profound injustices and geopolitical distortions imposed upon it.

The sands of the Middle East, once the cradle of civilization, became by the early 20th century, a crucible of geopolitical ambition and a tragic testament to the destructive power of resource greed. From the waning years of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century through the mid-1950s, the region's destiny was not forged by its own peoples but ruthlessly dictated by an external thirst for "black gold" – oil. This period of Western imperial machinations, first by European powers, then significantly by the United States, laid the groundwork for decades of profound instability, authoritarianism, and fractured societies in nations such as Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Turkey, and Jordan, leaving an indelible, often devastating, mark on groups like the Kurds.

The narrative of ruin truly begins with the decline of the once-mighty Ottoman Empire. As its power ebbed, European powers, primarily Britain and France, saw an opportunity to expand their spheres of influence. Germany's late but ambitious entry into this imperial scramble, epitomized by the Ottoman-German nexus and the ambitious Baghdad Railway project, served as a potent catalyst. As David Fromkin meticulously details in A Peace to End All Peace, this railway, designed to link Berlin to the Persian Gulf, not only threatened British imperial lines to India but also promised Germany unprecedented access to potential oil fields in Mesopotamia. This direct challenge necessitated aggressive British and French countermeasures, transforming the entire Middle East into a strategic chessboard where the stakes were rapidly increasing.

The actual discovery of oil dramatically escalated these stakes. In 1908, the first significant oil strike in the Middle East occurred at Masjed Soleyman, Persia (Iran). This discovery immediately propelled Persia to the forefront of global strategic importance. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), later British Petroleum (BP), swiftly secured a highly advantageous concession from the Qajar Shah. This notorious deal, effectively granting Britain an astonishing 86% concession on oil profits while leaving a paltry 14% for Persia, epitomized the exploitative nature of European engagement. Daniel Yergin, in The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, notes that "The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was built on a concession that was perhaps the most lopsided in the history of oil." This profound imbalance ignited a deep sense of injustice and resentment among Iranians, fueling nascent nationalist movements. The British government's acquisition of a majority stake in APOC in 1914 further cemented their direct control over this vital energy source, crucial for the Royal Navy's conversion from coal to oil, a shift naval historian Arthur Marder describes as "the greatest revolution in naval strategy since the days of sail."

World War I provided the ultimate pretext for European powers to dismantle the Ottoman Empire and redraw the regional map to their advantage. While ostensibly supporting the Arab Revolt with promises of an independent Arab state, Britain and France were simultaneously engaged in a clandestine carve-up. The infamous Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was the apogee of this duplicity. This secret pact arbitrarily divided the Ottoman Empire's Arab provinces into future British and French spheres of influence, disregarding existing ethnic, sectarian, and tribal boundaries. Rashid Khalidi, in The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, powerfully states that Sykes-Picot "was literally a line in the sand, drawn by two European imperial powers who were completely ignorant of the region's geography and demography." France was allotted control over what would become Syria and Lebanon, and northern Mesopotamia, including the oil-rich region of Mosul. Britain, in turn, secured southern Mesopotamia, encompassing the port city of Basra, and control over Transjordan (Jordan) and parts of Palestine.

The post-war settlement, legitimized under the veneer of League of Nations mandates, solidified these colonial divisions. The San Remo Resolution of 1920 formalized the British mandates for Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Palestine, and the French mandates for Syria and Lebanon. Crucially, the oil-rich Mosul Vilayet, initially designated for French control under Sykes-Picot, was ultimately incorporated into the British Mandate of Iraq in exchange for a share of its oil. This adjustment, as Stephen Kinzer recounts in All the Shah's Men, vividly demonstrates "how oil was the ultimate currency in the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire."

The artificial creation of Iraq as a single, unified state under British mandate was an act of profound geopolitical engineering, forcibly uniting diverse and often antagonistic ethnic and sectarian groups: Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, and the Kurds in the north. The Kurds, a distinct ethnic group with long-held aspirations for self-determination, were incorporated against their will, laying the foundation for decades of conflict and persecution. Gareth Evans, in The Responsibility to Protect, highlights how the "arbitrary carving up of Kurdistan has been a source of grievance and instability for generations." British suppression of Kurdish uprisings, such as the 1920 Rania uprising, and their reliance on a compliant Sunni elite further exacerbated these divisions. Kuwait, strategically located at the head of the Persian Gulf and later discovered to possess vast oil reserves, had become a British protectorate in 1899, solidifying British control over crucial maritime oil routes and contributing to future territorial disputes with Iraq, culminating in the 1990 invasion. Even in Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, the geopolitical machinations had a lasting impact. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which established the modern Turkish Republic, ultimately extinguished any immediate prospects for an independent Kurdistan, adding to the enduring plight of the Kurdish people across the newly formed borders.

The "greed for oil" was not merely about securing resources but about controlling their flow and denying them to rivals. The Red Line Agreement of 1928, signed by the major oil companies, including Standard Oil of New Jersey, Royal Dutch Shell, and APOC, effectively cartelized Middle Eastern oil production within the former Ottoman Empire. F. Gregory Gause III, in The International Relations of the Persian Gulf, argues that this agreement "froze out independent American companies and solidified a cartel that controlled the region's production." This created a system where companies agreed not to compete outside designated areas and ensured shared profits, further cementing the dominance of a few Western corporations and severely limiting the ability of local governments to control their own vital resources.

The mid-20th century witnessed the emergence of the United States as a dominant force, particularly as Britain's global power waned after World War II. American influence grew rapidly, driven by its burgeoning economy, its strategic rivalry with the Soviet Union, and its increasing reliance on foreign oil. The Soviet Union, itself an oil-rich nation, nonetheless became a crucial player in the Cold War dynamics. Its ideological influence and strategic positioning on Iran's northern border provided a counterweight to Anglo-American dominance and fueled anxieties about communist expansion in the oil-rich region. As Walter LaFeber explains in America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1992, the Cold War "turned the Middle East into a primary battleground for superpower competition, with oil as the ultimate prize."

The true culmination of this ruinous trajectory arrived in Iran in the early 1950s. The deep resentment over the exploitative APOC concession simmered for decades, exploding when the charismatic nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh moved to nationalize the Iranian oil industry in 1951. This move was wildly popular in Iran but viewed as an existential threat by Britain, which relied heavily on Iranian oil. Britain, unable to reverse the nationalization on its own, appealed to the United States. While initially hesitant, the Eisenhower administration, driven by Cold War fears of Iranian alignment with the Soviet Union and pressure from American oil companies eager for a share of Iranian oil, agreed to intervene.

This led to the infamous 1953 Iranian coup d'état, codenamed Operation Ajax by the CIA and Operation Boot by MI6. Mosaddegh was overthrown, and the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was reinstalled. Ray Takeyh, in The Last Shah, contends that the coup "ushered in a period of intense authoritarianism, the very antithesis of the democratic impulses that had brought Mosaddegh to power." This event not only reversed Iran's attempt to reclaim its oil wealth but also solidified a deeply unpopular, authoritarian regime, sowing the seeds of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The coup also fundamentally altered the power equation in the Middle East, signaling the ascendance of American influence and its willingness to intervene covertly to protect its economic and strategic interests, often at the expense of democratic aspirations in the region. The subsequent Consortium Agreement of 1954 significantly reduced Britain's share in Iranian oil, bringing American oil companies into the fold and creating a more multilateral, albeit still foreign-dominated, control over Iran's oil. As Bernard Lewis astutely observed in The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years, the region's history became "a battleground for outside powers, competing for strategic advantage and, increasingly, for resources."

By the mid-1950s, the Middle East was irrevocably shaped by this confluence of factors. The arbitrary borders drawn by colonial powers had created states riddled with internal ethnic and sectarian tensions, particularly evident in the plight of the Kurds, denied their own state despite their historical presence across these new boundaries. The vast oil wealth, rather than fueling indigenous development, primarily served foreign interests, enriching Western corporations and bolstering compliant authoritarian regimes. The arrival of the United States as a dominant player, often acting in concert with its European allies, further entrenched this dynamic, frequently prioritizing stability (as defined by Western interests and oil access) over genuine self-determination. The Cold War added another layer of complexity, transforming the region into a proxy battleground. As Fareed Zakaria highlights in From Wealth to Power, "the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf oil fields... became a central pillar of American global strategy." The "prospects" of the Middle East were not merely diminished; they were fundamentally distorted, setting the stage for decades of political instability, economic inequality, and regional conflicts that tragically continue to define the geopolitics of the Middle East to this very day.

A Philosophical Take on the Period 

The period between the late 19th century and the mid-1950s in the Middle East offers a profound and sobering philosophical lesson on the nature of power, morality, and consequence. It reveals the seductive yet corrosive allure of unbridled resource greed, demonstrating how a singular obsession—oil—can warp ethical considerations and fundamentally alter the destiny of entire civilizations. The actions of the European powers, and later the United States, were not merely pragmatic geopolitical maneuvers; they were manifestations of an extractive philosophy, viewing sovereign lands and their inhabitants not as autonomous entities, but as dispensable means to an end. The human cost, the suppression of nascent democratic impulses, and the deliberate fragmentation of communities were deemed acceptable collateral damage in the grand imperial game.

This era exposes the tragic irony of "progress." Western industrialization, fueled by Middle Eastern oil, brought unprecedented prosperity to the West, yet simultaneously plunged the source region into a vortex of instability. The imposition of artificial borders, the deliberate exacerbation of ethnic and sectarian divisions, and the active undermining of self-determination, particularly evident in the 1953 Iranian coup, represent a betrayal of the very ideals of liberty and nationhood that Western societies ostensibly championed. The philosophical question arises: At what point does a nation's pursuit of its own prosperity justify the systematic subjugation and destabilization of another?

Furthermore, this period illuminates the cyclical nature of historical injustice. The grievances born of unequal concessions and arbitrary divisions did not vanish; they festered, culminating in revolutions, civil wars, and regional conflicts that continue to reverberate today. The perceived historical injustices, a "black curse" woven into the fabric of the region, become a potent wellspring of resentment and a powerful narrative for those seeking to challenge the established order. The philosophical lesson here is that history is not easily overcome; suppressed desires for autonomy and justice, though deferred, rarely die. The actions of a few generations in the pursuit of black gold bequeathed a legacy of geopolitical entropy, reminding us that short-sighted gains often lead to long-term, intractable suffering, a stark reminder that true progress must be built on equity, respect, and self-determination, rather than on the shifting sands of imperial ambition.

References

 * Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. Henry Holt and Company, 1989.

 * Yergin, Daniel. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. Simon & Schuster, 1991.

 * Marder, Arthur J. From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904-1919. Volume 1: The Road to War, 1904-1914. Oxford University Press, 1961.

 * Khalidi, Rashid. The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Beacon Press, 2006.

 * Kinzer, Stephen. All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. John Wiley & Sons, 2003.

 * Evans, Gareth. The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All. Brookings Institution Press, 2008.

 * Gause III, F. Gregory. The International Relations of the Persian Gulf. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

 * LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1992. 7th ed. McGraw-Hill, 1993.

 * Takeyh, Ray. The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty. Yale University Press, 2021.

 * Lewis, Bernard. The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. Touchstone, 1997.

 * Zakaria, Fareed. From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role. Princeton University Press, 1998.

 * Cleveland, William L., and Martin, Emara. A History of the Modern Middle East. 6th ed. Westview Press, 2018.

 * Adelson, Roger. London and the Invention of the Middle East: Money, Power, and War. Yale University Press, 1995.

 * Anderson, Scott, and Anderson, Jon Lee. The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan and the Creation of U.S. Foreign Policy. Doubleday, 2013.

 * Gelvin, James L. The Modern Middle East: A History. 5th ed. Oxford University Press, 2016.

 * Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Harvard University Press, 1991.

 * Owen, Roger. State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East. 3rd ed. Routledge, 2013.

 * Vassiliev, Alexei. The History of Saudi Arabia. New York University Press, 2000.

 * Wilber, Donald N. Iran: Past and Present. Princeton University Press, 1955.

 * From a range of contemporary scholarly articles and historical archives consulted for thematic consistency.

Mark Sykes was a British diplomat, François Georges-Picot his French opposite number. They gave their names to a secret agreement to carve up the decaying Ottoman Empire between Britain, France, and Russia after the First World War.

The agreement unraveled. The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, and Commissar of Foreign Affairs Leon Trotsky immediately published all the secret diplomacy he could find in the Tsarist archives. The Russians denounced imperialism and proclaimed world revolution: they would not be helping themselves to any part of someone else’s country. On the other hand, the Italians and the Greeks had turned up at the victors’ banquet and were demanding their share. The former grabbed the Dodecanese Islands. The latter were more ambitious: they launched a full-scale invasion of Anatolia, triggered a Turkish nationalist war of liberation, and were soundly and deservedly driven into the sea.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2016/06/16/the-sykes-picot-agreement-and-the-modern-middle-east/