Why Trump’s Return May Not Change Much for the Middle East
I want a Marxist lens to intervene today: The exploitation and destruction of Palestine and the Middle East by past and present imperial powers remains largely unaffected by who holds the Oval Office.
I know some of us are in shock. Trump is back, and yes, it will be bad—for Europe, for China, for global trade, for NATO—and most certainly for the Middle East. But for those entrenched in the region, perhaps little will truly shift. For Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis —and even, to an extent, Israelis and Iranians—things may not become drastically better or worse. Why? Because the exploitation and interference by past and present imperial powers in the Middle East is deeply systemic, operating independently of whoever sits in the Oval Office.
Now, I don’t like to lean too heavily on Marxist frameworks. They often miss the agency of both leaders and social movements and can obscure the unique cultural, historical, and political contexts in play. And yes, they carry a certain determinism, which, if I’m honest, can feel like a weight—a kind of fatalism that dampens activism rather than fuels it, at least that’s the effect they have on me. But there’s always a way to bounce back from the Marxist abyss, and it’s undeniable that having a historical continuum and a structural framework of economic and political power in the background can be incredibly useful.
So today, as a Trickster1 —a disrupter of the so-called ‘global liberal order’—is once again poised to take the world’s most powerful office, I want to share with you some arguments that trace the origins of Palestine’s destruction and the enduring instability across the Middle East to these larger forces—those rooted in fossil-fuel imperialism and economic exploitation.
Andreas Malm’s The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth (2023) provides a compelling starting point for understanding the intersection of fossil-fuel imperialism and conflict in the Middle East. For anyone who studies or works on the region, there’s usually a critical turning point that defines the making of the modern Middle East. For some—including myself—that moment is the Ottoman Empire’s Tanzimat decree; for others, it’s Egypt’s bankruptcy over the Suez Canal. For Malm, it’s 1840: Britain’s intervention against Muhammad Ali.
Malm argues that the British Empire’s 1840 military campaign against Muhammad Ali of Egypt marked a pivotal shift, not only for fossil fuel dependency but also for colonial dominance across the Middle East. Britain’s deployment of steam-powered ships, fueled by coal, laid the foundation for what Malm describes as the transition from “fossil capital” to “fossil empire.” No longer constrained by the limits of wind and sail, Britain could now extend its reach, integrating distant regions into its fossil-fueled economic system. This new “fossil empire” established both technological and ideological foundations that would shape regional power dynamics, embedding Palestine and neighboring territories within a larger framework of exploitation that persists to this day.
Timothy Mitchell’s Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil (2011) takes Malm’s ideas further by examining how fossil fuel systems directly shaped political power and democratic struggles. Mitchell argues that coal, labour-intensive and vulnerable to strikes, initially enabled workers to demand democratic rights because energy flows were easily disrupted. This interconnectedness created a "carbon democracy," where energy dependency empowered labour movements to challenge political elites. However, as oil began to replace coal, these democratic potentials weakened. Oil extraction could be centralized in remote locations and transported through pipelines, which were less susceptible to strikes and other disruptions. This shift allowed imperial powers, particularly Britain and the United States, to centralize control over oil-rich regions, facilitating colonial rule while suppressing democratic aspirations—a dynamic still evident in the Middle East’s ongoing political struggles.
Beyond Malm and Mitchell, other scholars have expanded on how fossil fuels and imperialism converge to shape conflicts in Palestine and the broader Middle East. Patrick Wolfe’s theory of settler colonialism, particularly in Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology (1999), helps contextualize Palestine’s struggles as part of a broader colonial strategy focused on displacing indigenous populations to gain control over land and resources. Wolfe argues that settler colonialism is a structure, not an event—one aimed at continuously reinforcing foreign dominance over local populations. In Palestine, British and later Zionist interests sought not only to establish a political presence but to transform the region into a strategic economic asset. Palestine’s geographic proximity to oil-rich territories made it a crucial piece in a broader project to secure Middle Eastern oil supplies for Western powers, a dynamic that has left a lasting impact on Palestinian sovereignty.
David Harvey’s theory of “accumulation by dispossession,” as outlined in The New Imperialism (2003), extends this analysis by describing how global capitalism systematically appropriates land and resources from local populations to generate profit. Harvey’s insights shed light on how imperial strategies in Palestine involved widespread land confiscation, displacement, and restricted access to resources. This process ensured that economic benefits flowed to imperial powers and their allies, leaving Palestinian territories heavily dependent on foreign interests. For Harvey, such dynamics reveal a pattern where capitalism, backed by imperial intervention, extracts wealth from marginalized regions, reinforcing a cycle of dependency and dispossession in places like Palestine and the broader Middle East.
Ali Kadri, in his book Arab Development Denied: Dynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment (2014), explores a concept he calls “de-development,” where conflicts, sanctions, and foreign interventions hinder the Middle East’s economic progress, especially in Palestine, Iraq, and Syria. Kadri argues that systematic underdevelopment—where external powers restrict economic autonomy and prevent self-sufficiency—keeps these regions dependent on foreign control. In Palestine, Israel’s control over natural resources, including water and gas reserves off Gaza’s coast, exemplifies this de-development. By denying Palestinian access to these resources, local economic independence is stifled, preserving a structure of dependency that benefits regional and global powers while perpetuating instability and hardship for Palestinians.
Laleh Khalili’s Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula (2020) provides another layer to understanding fossil-fueled imperialism by examining how imperial powers militarized maritime routes for oil transportation. Khalili argues that ports and logistical hubs, especially those crossing the Middle East, became militarized to protect fossil fuel supply lines. These hubs became fortified spaces under British and later American influence, ensuring that fossil fuel resources remained secure for Western interests. Palestine’s geostrategic location placed it within these logistics networks, linking its control to a broader imperial project that saw the region’s ports, transport routes, and land as essential pieces in the Western energy supply chain.
Finally, Michael Klare’s Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (2001) situates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within a broader framework of competition over resources like oil and gas. Klare argues that the Middle East’s role as a global energy supplier has driven numerous interventions, regime changes, and conflicts aimed at securing resource control. For Klare, resource competition is central to understanding the protracted instability in the Middle East. In Palestine, the intersection of Zionist settlement, foreign interests, and regional resource control highlights how geopolitical tensions are deeply intertwined with fossil fuel dependencies.
Seen together, these analyses suggest that the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East—including the destruction and dispossession in Palestine—are deeply embedded in the global capitalist system’s relentless drive for energy resources and sustained by colonial structures. As fossil fuels continue to shape the balance of power, Palestine remains a focal point in a broader struggle over land, sovereignty, and control—a struggle that echoes nearly two centuries of imperial designs imposed on the region.
So, what will happen with Trump back at the helm? I doubt his disruption of “the structure” will reverberate much in the Middle East. The impacts will likely be felt more drastically domestically and in Europe. For the Middle East, the apparatus these scholars describe has already been set firmly in place. It’s a ready-made structure that might even let him add a Trump Tower wherever he deems fit. No? Yes.
Please don’t think I’m taking the dangers ahead of us lightly. Levity is sometimes a form of resistance.
The Global South and the “Global Poor”
When we talk about fossil fuel imperialism, we are not only talking about the structural forces that destroy the Middle East; we are confronting an apocalyptic trajectory for the planet itself. As Malm and others argue, climate change is shoving us toward a point of no return, where environmental collapse intensifies and entangles with social crises. Trump’s outright dismissal of climate science only adds fuel to this fire, ignoring every warning from scientists. Beyond the brutal legacy of war and imperialism, we now face the systematic degradation of soil, air, and water—a devastation that will hit hardest in the global South and among the “global poor.” Malm et al. call this unfolding crisis “paupercide.” But we don’t talk about it. As Simon Kuper noted in his FT column last weekend, people are drawn to stories on social divisions rather than climate collapse. Journalists, following their readers’ cues, sidestep climate stories. There must be a psychological term for this brand of denial.
I draw on Homi Bhabha and Walter Armbrust's conceptualizations of the trickster in the political realm. Bhabha and Armbrust both depict the trickster as a figure who exploits transitional, unstable environments to challenge or manipulate norms. Bhabha’s trickster disrupts colonial narratives through mimicry, revealing power’s inherent contradictions, while Armbrust’s trickster leverages ambiguity and media influence during societal upheavals to gain political influence, exemplified by figures like Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.