The Curse of Empire: From Iran to Israel to Ambazonia — The Unfinished Legacy of Imperial Strategy

From Iran to Israel, from South Asia to Africa, and finally to Ambazonia, the struggles of the present remind us that the age of empire may have formally ended, yet its shadow continues to shape the politics of our time.

By Ali Dan Ismael, Editor-in-Chief The Independentistnews

The conflicts shaping today’s world—from the confrontation between Iran and Israel to the shifting balance of global economic power—did not emerge suddenly from contemporary rivalries. They are the product of a geopolitical architecture built during the age of empire, when European powers redrew borders, controlled resources, and engineered political systems whose consequences still reverberate across the twenty-first century.

Among the principal actors of that era, Britain played a decisive role. Yet Britain was not alone. France, the United States, and later the institutions of the post–Second World War order all participated in shaping the political and economic structures that define modern geopolitics. The legacy of those decisions can be traced from the Middle East to South Asia, from Africa to East Asia, and ultimately to the unresolved constitutional questions of Southern Cameroons—known today to many as Ambazonia. Understanding the tensions of the present requires revisiting the foundations of that imperial system.

1953: When Oil Became a Battlefield

One of the defining episodes of modern Middle Eastern history occurred in 1953, when Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, was removed from power.

Mossadegh’s central policy was straightforward: the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry. At the time, Iran’s petroleum resources were dominated by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, a British enterprise that exercised enormous control over production and profits.

For Britain, Mossadegh’s decision threatened both corporate interests and geopolitical influence. British intelligence therefore sought assistance from Washington. The resulting operation—known as Operation Ajax—was organized jointly by MI6 and the CIA and ultimately led to Mossadegh’s removal and the restoration of the Shah.

The consequences were profound. The Shah ruled for more than two decades with Western support, but resentment toward foreign intervention steadily intensified within Iran. That resentment later fueled the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which transformed Iran’s political system and reshaped its relationship with the West. Today’s tensions between Tehran and Washington cannot be understood without this historical context.

The Imperial Map of the Middle East

The political landscape of the Middle East was shaped even earlier during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

Following the First World War, Britain and France divided large parts of the region through mandate arrangements that placed territories under their administration. These arrangements were often guided by strategic interests rather than by the historical or social realities of the region.

Within this context, Britain administered Palestine for several decades. The end of that mandate in 1948 coincided with the creation of the State of Israel—a development that fulfilled the aspiration of a Jewish homeland but also triggered a series of regional conflicts that continue to shape Middle Eastern politics. Over time, the triangular tensions among Iran, Israel, and the United States emerged within this geopolitical framework.

Imperial Rivalry and the World Wars

The twentieth century itself began under the shadow of imperial competition. Germany’s rapid industrial expansion challenged Britain’s long-standing economic dominance, while colonial territories and global markets remained largely under imperial control. The resulting rivalry among European powers contributed to the strategic tensions that erupted following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

The First World War devastated Europe and reshaped global politics. The Treaty of Versailles imposed heavy economic penalties on Germany, contributing to the instability that later helped fuel the Second World War.

The United States and the Postwar Order

The United States entered both world wars primarily as a stabilizing power rather than as an imperial actor. Yet the outcome of the Second World War transformed the global balance of power. Europe emerged weakened, colonial empires began dissolving, and Britain’s global dominance steadily declined.

In that vacuum, the United States assumed a central role in shaping the postwar international system. Through alliances, economic reconstruction, and international institutions, Washington inherited many of the strategic responsibilities previously carried by European empires.

Bretton Woods and Global Financial Architecture

In 1944, the Bretton Woods conference created two institutions designed to stabilize the global economy: the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

These institutions played an important role in rebuilding war-torn economies and stabilizing global finance. Yet critics from the developing world later argued that the conditions attached to international loans sometimes compelled poorer nations to restructure their economies in ways that favored industrialized powers.

Whether viewed as economic discipline or structural imbalance, the Bretton Woods system ensured that global financial governance remained closely linked to Western economic leadership.

The Petrodollar Era

During the 1970s another pillar of the global system emerged: the petrodollar arrangement. Major oil-producing states agreed to price energy exports in U.S. dollars, reinforcing the dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve currency. This arrangement strengthened global demand for the American currency and enabled the United States to sustain large international commitments. For decades the petrodollar system supported American global leadership.

The Rise of BRICS and the Multipolar Economy

In recent years, emerging economies have begun exploring alternatives to the dollar-centered financial system.

The BRICS grouping—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—has launched new financial institutions and expanded trade cooperation aimed at reducing reliance on the dollar.

These developments do not yet represent the end of the existing system, but they reflect the gradual emergence of a more multipolar economic order.

The Imperial Pattern Across the World

The consequences of imperial governance extend far beyond the Middle East. The partition of India produced the states of India and Pakistan and later led to the creation of Bangladesh.

In Nigeria, British colonial administration consolidated numerous ethnic nations into a single political structure whose regional tensions later contributed to instability and civil conflict.

In South Africa, struggles among British colonial authorities, Afrikaner settlers, and African kingdoms reshaped the political landscape, eventually giving rise to apartheid—a system that required decades of resistance and international pressure to dismantle.

In Hong Kong, the legacy of British colonial administration continues to influence debates about sovereignty and governance.

And in Southern Cameroons, the territory administered by Britain under United Nations trusteeship, the constitutional arrangements that followed the 1961 plebiscite remain the subject of ongoing legal and political debate.

For many observers, the United Nations—despite its supervisory role in the trusteeship system—has largely remained silent on the unresolved questions surrounding the territory’s political future.

Culture and the Narrative of Power

Even popular culture reflected aspects of this geopolitical transition. During the Cold War, British cinema exported a powerful image of intelligence dominance through the famous Double-O spy series. In these films, the fictional agent James Bond confronted global villains with the assistance of American intelligence partners.

Though fictional, these narratives echoed the broader geopolitical relationship between Britain and the United States during the Cold War: one power passing the mantle of global leadership to another while maintaining an influential strategic partnership.

In many ways, these films represented the onscreen play of the imperial game that had been unfolding in world politics for decades.

Conclusion: The Long Shadow of Empire

Seen through the lens of history, today’s geopolitical tensions are not isolated events. They are the cumulative result of decisions made during the age of empire.

The twentieth century began with imperial rivalries that produced two world wars. From those wars emerged a global system shaped first by European empires and later sustained by American leadership, supported by international financial institutions and the dollar-centered global economy.

For decades that system endured.

But the world is changing. Economic power is dispersing, financial structures are evolving, and nations increasingly question the political arrangements inherited from the colonial era.

Nowhere are those questions more visible than in Southern Cameroons.

Britain once administered the territory under United Nations trusteeship. Today its voice on the issue is largely absent, even as the region faces a prolonged conflict and profound humanitarian challenges.

The symbolic remnants of Britain’s colonial legacy remain—language, institutions, and cultural forms—but these traces cannot substitute for meaningful engagement with the unresolved political questions of the past.

Empires may disappear, but the structures they leave behind rarely vanish with them.

From Iran to Israel, from South Asia to Africa, and finally to Ambazonia, the struggles of the present remind us that the age of empire may have formally ended, yet its shadow continues to shape the politics of our time.

Ali Dan Ismael Editor-in-Chief