You will never be a real empire. You have no power, you have no sphere of influence, you have no allies. You are a failed state twisted by oil-based economy and institutional desolation into a crude mockery of former self.
All the “political validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back first world countries mock you. Any civilized man is disgusted and ashamed of you, your “colleagues” laugh at your all-around impotency behind closed doors.
The world is utterly repulsed by you. Throughout thousands of years of human history you were nothing but just a resource pump. Even the regimes that “pass” look uncivilised and inhumane to a western man. Your society structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to buy out some poor ruined country to participate in your “organisations”, they'll turn tail and bolt the second they get a whiff of democratic, prosperous western world.