[Pokepokalypse]

Oil would only have been a thing maybe after 1890's or so.

It's been violent and reactionary for centuries.

The natural resource that drove the Romans and Greeks, and later Europe to colonize that region was: trade routes.

Frankly; Turkey, Persia, and Egypt have also been at each other's throats over regional dominance for centuries.

[BurningFrog]

Pretty much the whole world was violent and reactionary before 1890.

[tomjen3]

Egypt fought the Europeans. Egypt fought the Romans. Egypt fought the Asyrian Empire.

The middle-east has been a powerhouse since before Europe was a thing. They have been fighting each other for tens of millenniums.

I don't think oil was that big a factor before WWI though. You have to remember that until cars come along the entire industrial revolution is powered by coal and the UK had plenty of coal. Oil only becomes important after the first world war -- at the same time the Ottoman Empire that had ruled most of the middle-east is broken up, so you have a bunch of new countries with new civil infrastructure getting massively wealthy from a seemingly endless gift from the group - and all of those countries are ruled by tribal people and strongmen, if only because they were set up that way by the British and French.