Why the US is so interested in Iraq?

The book "New Imperialism" is a very thought provoking book that describes why America was/is so interested in Middle East affairs and Iraq. Before reading this book, I had only read articles on news papers, websites, magazines and watched TV programs on this topic. They were mostly looking at this from the Western view point. No wonder most media conglomerates are owned by the West!

But when I was reading the book "Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction," I came across some disturbing facts about Royal Air Force bombing Iraq continuously killing many civilians. The account was given by an Iraqi describing an incident where the bombing had killed many at a wedding. I wanted to read more about it, to find 'truth' about that claim.

The formation of nation-states in the Middle East after the First World War, had been done by the then colonial powers British and the French, on their interest. During the period 1940-1967 the shares of the US oil companies in the region increased from 10%-60% while British shares decreased from 72%-30%. So, American interest had been on Middle East for quite some time now.

If you thought that the US and British were helping Iraqi civilians, you will be shocked to see the facts revealed in this book. It questions the reasons for Iraqi invasion by the US and British troops in 2003 (against UN Security Council decision) and provides insight to "oil politics".

Some interesting quotes from the book:

"America claims to have an interest in establishing democracy" (p9) but in 1953 democratically elected Mossadegh of Iran was overthrown and dictator Shah installed upon the throne by a coup lead by the US. In April 2002, another coup tried to overthrow the Venezuelan president Chavez, but that time Chavez came back to power with in 3 days. So, does America support only certain kinds of democracy that supports them?

"the IMF is the United States" (p72) Then most of the sufferings that were caused due to the IMF's structural adjustment policies are actually to be blamed on the US?

"Whoever controls Middle East controls global oil spigot and whoever controls the global oil spigot can control the global economy, at least for the near future" (oops I have lost the page number).


David Harvey(2003)The New Imperialism, Oxford Universtiy Press, Oxford.

Postcolonialism

When ever I came across the world "Postcolonialism" I thought I needed to read about it something more than what Wikipedia provides, but never got the time to do so.
Now I am reading this book Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction by Robert J. C. Young and it is really good. In fact, the series of books under Very Short Introductions by the Oxford University Press seems impressive. I read the book on Globalization: A Very short introduction and it too was very good.

I would highly recommend this book to all non-Western scholars and Western scholars (in other words for everyone) because it gives you a chance to locate yourself in this world and make you aware of how your thought process is shaped by the power politics.

Following are some interesting quotes from the book.

"A lot of people don't like the term 'postcolonial'[..]. It disturbs the order of the world. It threatens privilege and power. It refuses to acknowledge the superiority of western cultures. Its radical agenda is to demand equality and well-being for all human beings on this earth." (p7)




Young, Robert J.C. (2003). Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press.