History repeats itself: Britain invaded Iraq for Oil in 1918

[Turn CO Blue]

Article in the Chicago Sun-Times

Failures in Iraq repeat history
November 21, 2004
BY EDWIN BLACK

America cannot succeed in Iraq until we understand the history we ignored and recently repeated. For the past century, Iraq has offered only one attraction to the Western powers: oil. It has been a fatal attraction.

During World War I, Britain invaded Mesopotamia (as the three neglected Turkish provinces were called) for oil and only for oil. Despite this, the British declared in their May 18, 1918, proclamation, read aloud in Baghdad: ''Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.''

<http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-ref21.html>

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If you read the history in this article , it's like a play-by-play of the current war. Same rhetoric, same insurgency, same mess.

[aquart]

1. Didn't work, did it?

And the Brits are STILL hated in the midEast?

[WMliberal]

3. it still doesn't work

because they drew the lines then that still exist today. there was no Iraq before 1918. there really shouldn't be one now.

[knowbody0]

2. lessons learned as well by the french in algiers