A text by Pierre Courtemanche, Sustainability & Supply Chain Strategist
BUSINESS IDEAS. Every new crisis in the Middle East seems to be presented as a standalone event. A war breaks out. A coalition forms. A regime falls. Markets react. Then a new emergency replaces the previous one.
However, many current tensions are the varied consequences of geopolitical decisions made sometimes decades ago.
The modern history of the Middle East is marked by temporary alliances, contradictory support, and interventions primarily motivated by immediate strategic interests.
The problem is that the short-term objectives of major powers often lead to long-term instability.
The logic of useful alliances
For over a century, the Middle East has been a major strategic space.
Initially for imperial sea routes. Then for oil. Then for the Cold War. Today, it includes supply chains, critical minerals, logistical corridors, and global energy security.
Despite changes over time, a logic remains: supporting actors deemed useful at the present time.
These alliances rarely aim for sustainable political or social stability. They mostly seek to contain a rival, protect access to resources, or maintain regional balance.
This logic often leads to deeply contradictory situations.
Authoritarian regimes are supported in the name of stability, then denounced when they become strategic obstacles. Armed groups funded in a certain context later become international threats.
Iran: strategic stability, political explosion
The example of Iran illustrates this dynamic well.
After the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, the Shah became a central strategic ally of the United States. The goal was clear: prevent Soviet expansion in a region crucial for global energy supplies.
Iran rapidly modernizes. But behind this modernization, political repression, corruption, and a growing sense of foreign interference accumulate.
In the short term, the regime brings useful stability to Western powers.
In the long term, fragilities erupt.
The 1979 Iranian revolution profoundly transforms regional balances.
A particular historical detail remains revealing: Ayatollah Khomeini, a central figure in the Iranian revolution, found refuge in France in 1978. From Neauphle-le-Château, near Paris, he could freely communicate with international media and spread his messages to Iran.
Today, in another historic turn, the dethroned Shah’s son Reza Pahlavi sometimes appears in certain Western circles as a possible transitional figure for a post-Islamic regime Iran.
History sometimes recycles its own actors.
Saddam Hussein: ally turned enemy
The history of Saddam Hussein reveals another contradiction.
After the Iranian revolution, several Western countries and Gulf monarchies viewed revolutionary Iran as the primary regional threat.
Iraq then becomes a useful strategic bulwark.
During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein received multiple supports: financial aid from the Gulf, Soviet military equipment, European backing, and indirect American intelligence support.
The immediate goal was simple: contain Iran.
But this strategy also helped strengthen a highly militarized authoritarian regime.
A few years later, after the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein suddenly became the enemy to be toppled.
Subsequently:
- the Gulf War;
- the sanctions;
- the 2003 American invasion;
- the collapse of the Iraqi state;
- and a long period of instability favoring the rise of the Islamic State.
Once again, a short-term strategic logic led to consequences far exceeding the initial objectives.
The current conflict: the peak of short-term
The current conflict directly involving the United States and Iran seems to push this logic even further.
The paradox is striking: despite the magnitude of tensions and regional risks, it becomes difficult to clearly identify the pursued strategic objectives.
Is it:
- to contain the Iranian nuclear program?
- to provoke a regime change?
- to restore a deterrence capability?
- to protect Israel?
- to secure energy routes?
- or simply to respond to immediate political imperatives and a demonstration of power?
Even the US allies struggle to identify a coherent and sustainable vision. As French President Emmanuel Macron recently stated, “We are in a mess we did not choose.”
This statement encapsulates the current strategic unease: several partners seem caught in a dynamic with unclear final objectives.
This sense of improvisation fuels global uncertainty.
Because unlike previous decades, the consequences now extend far beyond the region: energy disruptions, inflation, maritime tensions in the Strait of Hormuz with risks of escalation, financial instability, and pressures on global supply chains.
A historical lesson
Major powers will always seek to defend their strategic interests. This is nothing new.
But recent Middle East history shows that stability primarily built around immediate interests and opportunistic alliances often remains fragile.
Ignored political, social, and economic fractures usually resurface.
And in a deeply interconnected world, the consequences never stay local for long.
History does not predict the exact nature of future crises.
But it at least reminds us of one thing: geopolitical balances constructed solely to address present urgencies often lead to instability in the future.
