Iran-Israel Crisis and the Global Exploitation of Resource-Rich Nations

When oil rests on your lap, you live in fear. But the U.S., acting like a child, plays both cradles – picking friends, creating enemies, and ending wars only to crown itself as the world’s savior.

Introduction

Prosperity has always been seen as attainable through the use of natural resources. Oil, gas, and minerals power governments, propel economies, and impact global trade. However, wealthy countries are often caught in a vicious cycle of instability, foreign interference, and political unrest. Iran is among the clearest examples of this conundrum in the contemporary era.

Iran: Vast Natural Resources with Weak Institutions

Iran is poised to be a powerful economic player, with the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves and the fourth-largest proven oil reserves. Instead, however, it is wracked with sanctions, military escalation, internal political upheaval, and international isolation. The animosity currently surrounding tensions with Israel is spawned from decades of global interference, subterfuge, and intransigence in militarized geopolitics driven by the designs of outside actors, and not just an uncomplicated regional rivalry.

Iran’s Natural Resource Wealth

Iran’s Economic Pressures

Iran: Rich in Resources, Fragile in Governance

Because of its geology and geography, Iran has always been coveted by superpowers. Its political management – from the autocratic regime of the Shah to the present-day clerical establishment – has lacked the institutional transparency and stability to convert resource wealth into long-term growth.

Today, Iran’s economy is in ruins due to high unemployment, public dissatisfaction, and inflation above 40%. Decades of Western sanctions, particularly those imposed by the United States and its allies, have strained its civic institutions, isolated its financial systems, and stifled its oil trade. Instead of supporting regional stabilization, these tactics have bolstered hardliners, suppressed reform, and made regime survival dependent on conflict.

Sanctions & Economic Collapse

Energy Sector Inefficiencies

Revolutionary Guards’ Economic Control

Social Unrest & Political Pressure

Foreign Policy Costs

Israel-Iran Escalation: Proxy, Power, and Profit

The latest military flashpoints, from missile and drone exchanges to covert operations, signal a larger problem. Israel sees Iran’s nuclear ambitions as existential threats, and it has responded with preemptive airstrikes, cyberattacks, and diplomatic action. In retaliation, Iran employs asymmetric warfare and ballistic missiles, including through allies such the Houthis or Hezbollah, along with the mobilization of their proxies.

Yet still, behind the state-level enmity, is a more intricate network of countries taking advantage of and using the conflict for their own financial and strategic benefits.

Who’s Benefiting From Iran’s Instability?

These nations gain more than just economic advantages. While Iran suffers internally, they acquire strategic advantage, defend domestic defense expenditures, and influence regional power dynamics.

The Resource Curse in Practice

This pattern follows a typical cycle seen in the Global South:

• Weak initiating states seek to leverage natural resources and attract outside intervention, generally on a global level.
• Intervention results in conflict, dependency, or coup.
• Institutions, if there are any, become corrupt, co-opted, or damaged.
• The nation has failed to become a sovereign agent for its own betterment, and is now the battlefield for others’ ambition.

From Congo to Iraq, from Libya to Venezuela, resource-rich but institutionally weak countries are being reduced to commodities. While foreign powers extract not only resources or oil but also control, influence, and obedience, their inhabitants suffer.

Conclusion: Lessons from Wealth Mismanagement and Global Disillusionment

The Iran-Israel matter is not simply a case of mutual hatred. It is a mirror of contemporary empires exploiting instability to impose their control and access profit opportunities, especially, when the victims can’t or won’t join together to politically protect themselves. Instead of supporting hospitals and schools Iran’s oil supports militias and weapons. More sanctions or weapons will not resolve this case. It is a matter of sovereignty, strengthening institutions, and ending the growth industry of international exploitation.