Honestly I always thought the metaphor was borderline heavy handed, to the point that I never continued reading after the first book because the metaphor was boring to me
Now I feel positively gaslit. Did I imagine all this?
Dune was written in the 1950’s, but the geopolitical metaphors are a few decades older than that; the character of Paul Atreides is clearly a parallel to T.E. Lawrence, which places the geopolitical context firmly within the First World War. That’s a different part of the Middle East (the Levant as opposed to the Hejaz and Gulf), a different strategic value relating to long distance travel (the Suez Canal as opposed to oil), and a much older world of competing colonizers. And not to put too fine a point on it, the Ottomans also had a padishah emperor!
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... says that in 01960 the usa produced 8.11 million barrels of oil per day and consumed 9.80, with net imports of 1.61. (not sure what happened to the other 0.08.) net imports had grown dramatically over the previous decade, and oil was already a significant factor in usa political involvement in the middle east, in affairs such as the iranian coup. also, petroleum was a major strategic resource in the second world war; the usa's naval blockade against japanese oil imports is commonly cited as a major factor in japan's decision to attack the usa
by 01965 us net imports were up to 2.28 million barrels per day, so it was an issue of growing geopolitical importance, but still only a fraction of the importance opec and oil imports would have in the 01970s