The blood of Iraq boils black. Bubbling beneath the surface in a sandy womb, Iraq´s oil reserves resemble an iceberg. The `known´ and officially confirmed oil deposits amount to some 115 billion barrels. At over 10% of the world´s total reserves, this places Iraq third in global terms. However, an estimated further 350 billion barrels remain unseen and waiting to be unearthed. If confirmed, this would give Iraq the largest potential reserves in the world.

Through the application of little more than heat and pressure over time, millions of years of time, nature has transmuted death into oil. While, scientific orthodoxy favours the theory that oil was predominantly created by decayed plants and vegetation, small animals and even larger mammals may also have played a constructive role. Perhaps the millions of Iraq lives lost in territorial conflicts over the past few decades will many millennia ahead resurrect themselves in the guise of valuable natural resources to the benefit of future generations. At the least, it is to be hoped, their reanimations as precious minerals will entail less misery and hardship to future generations than Iraq´s black gold.

Spurred by the discovery of oil at Masjid-i Suleiman in Iran in 1908, the oil rush in the Middle East began in earnest. By the time the British forces engaged with the Turkish forces on the battlefields of Mesopotamia, oil had become a significant factor in global geo-politics. According to Sir Maurice Hankey, the Secretary of the War Cabinet, control of the Mesopotamian and Persian oil fields was a “first-class British war aim.”

In November 1914 and March 1917 respectively, Basra and Baghdad were taken by the British forces. It was however the capturing of the city of Mosul, capital of the eponymously named province, in November 1918 that proved controversial, coming as it did two weeks after Britain and Turkey had concluded the Mudros armistice. In an effort to deflect international criticism of Britain´s post-Treaty seizure of the Mosul oil fields, Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary, claimed that British policy in the region had been solely animated by an altruistic desire to safeguard the interests of the local inhabitants. In no way was it to be thought that the Her Majesty´s imperial policy would stoop so low as to let itself be influenced by a crude desire to profit from the oil reserves now `fortuitously´ located within Britain´s extended sphere of influence.

Fast forward some 85 years and it was the turn of the US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to proffer the same noble motives for his country leading a coalition of willing into Iraq. While Curzon was obliged to rely on a pliant press to spread his message of humanitarian intervention, Rumsfeld justified the US´s intercession in Iraq through the medium of television. In an interview on CBS TV he stoutly averred that the war had “nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.” In the same vein, he directly addressed the Arab world through the good offices of Al Jazeera News emphasising the integrity of the US approach to its global neighbours:

“We don’t take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people’s real estate or other people’s resources, their oil. That’s just not what the United States does. We never have, and we never will. That’s not how democracies behave.”

Just as Lord Curzon´s disavowal of ulterior motives in Britain´s desire to control Iraq´s oil resources was met with widespread scepticism, Rumsfeld´s honest broker arguments also rang hollow.

While a week may be a long time in politics, 80 years appears but a fleeting moment in geo-politics.

Both the Americans and British have paid heavily in human terms for their Iraq adventures. The 1920 Iraqi uprising alone resulted in some 2,500 British fatalities. To date, more than 4,400 US soldiers have died since the 2003 invasion. Once again the British have paid a price for their involvement in Iraq with over 180 lives lost so far. However, these statistics pale into insignificance when contrasted with the loss of Iraqi civilian life estimated at anywhere between 92,000 and 117,000 by the independent Iraq Body Count.

Of course, Iraq and its capital Baghdad have long suffered from foreign invasions. Located between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, in the famed Mesopotamia, Baghdad was once considered the principal commercial and cultural centre of the Muslim world. It has been a long time since Baghdad enjoyed such an exalted status.

The most devastating Baghdad´s sackings was by the Mongols in 1258 CE. At the time Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, an Islamic state whose heart was the modern state of Iraq. The Abbasid caliphs were the second of the Islamic dynasties, having in 751 CE toppled the Umayyads, who had ruled from the death of Ali in 661 CE. Refusing to cower beneath the Mongol `hordes´, it met a gruesome and grisly fate as over a hundred thousand of its citizens were killed. The learning and libraries of Baghdad also perished in this catacomb. For several centuries, Baghdad remained a depopulated, ruined city, only gradually recovering some of its former glory.

Less well remembered is the fact that these Mongol forces included Chinese, Persians, Turkish and Christian troops all ready and willing to take up arms against the Abbasid Caliphate.

When I worked in Iraq in the pre-2003 invasion days, the only entry was by road. Today, there are daily international flights in and out of Iraq. Visas are no longer required for many nationalities, who can receive a free stamp of 10 days on arrival, valid for extension upon a short visit to the residency office.

However, Iraq is still a country in quandary. Eight months after the Iraqi people voted in a general election, negotiations continue to finalise agreement on the establishment of a new national government.

Oil remains a major bone of contention as it has been for over a hundred years now. Although ironically opposition to a US attempt to privatise oil along with other public institutions and enterprises did threaten to unite the disparate factions, at least to a certain extent, shortly after the occupation of Iraq.

Despite the presence of vast reserves, Iraq continues to miss its oil export and production targets. Massive investment is needed: an estimated $1 billion a year just to maintain current oil production. An estimated further US$100 billion will be required to fund Iraq´s general reconstruction costs, a third of which will be required for its oil, gas and electricity energy sectors.

As has been the case for the past 100 years, the black gold rush continues, unperturbed by recent developments. However, the scramble for Iraq is no longer the sole province of imperial governments or Mongol hordes. These new foreign forces are largely comprised of oil companies and their executives, their invasive presence paved by foreign militaries, or as Tony Blair´s ex-advisor Robert Cooper now Director-General for External and Politico-Military Affairs at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union might put it the “iron fist” behind the “velvet glove”.

Of course, there was more to the 2003 invasion of Iraq than just giving oil companies unfettered access to the deposits there. Geo-political considerations and controlling the access of other competitor states to this critical energy resource were primary considerations. However, it is hard to escape the contestation that without oil Iraq would have been a far calmer, albeit potentially poorer, place for its inhabitants.