The further you go back in history, the more it makes sense. Western powers (well, mostly (crypto) jews and Jesuits) propped up certain families and removed others from power to gain control over oil and their military.
Puppet regimes that then start strong arming for more influence over the years and once they're more sovereign, you still have a corrupt regime living in luxury while their people starve. It's a story as old as recorded time. Happened to nations of all faiths.
Add to that trillion dollar oil trade, dollar hegemony, blackmail, corruption, mafia and intelligence being involved. Threat of sanctions or color revolutions if you step out of line.
Their people are as powerless as we are and every hope for revolution is under the permanent shadow of it being just astroturfed anyways. I think the last leader to improve quality of life for his people was Gaddafi and they managed to manipulate his own people into killing him on the streets.
Wikileaks showed how many Islamic leaders were caught with young boys on their yachts.
We're all managed by psychopaths who rape and torture kids.
