Competition for Oil Oil was first discovered at Masjid-i-Suleiman in Iran on 26 May 1908. It sparked an intense competition for control of this resource considered vital for seaborne and military transportation, to an extent that control of oil supplies became a first class British War Aim during WWI. The British forced change of the Sykes-Picot Plan to carve up the Ottoman Empire to ensure they retained Mosul, wile USA and France nearly came to conflict with Britain to ensure they received a due share in the oil wealth . After the war, the promises of Arab independence made by the famed Lawrence of Arabia to obtain Arab support against Turkey were dishonoured. Instead, artificial kingdoms with imported rulers were created, giving rise to the states of Iraq, Syria and Jordan, essentially to ensure that control of oil remained with the Western powers. In 1953, the CIA and MI6 came together to depose Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, essentially because he wanted an audit of the accounts of oil companies. Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi was designated to rule "more firsmy", leading eventually to the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and later, when Saddam was contemplating the invasion of Kuwait, American Ambassador April Glaspie is on record as having told him, "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts,l such as your dispute with Kuwait". If the first american intervention in Iraq was to depose Saddam Hussein, the second was to take control of oil in the region. Even today, USA continues to do in the Middle East much the same that Britain did in the last century -Keep the region divided to retain control over the oil.The reality is that to generate profit, mineral resources have to be both extracted and transported. Extraction requires a politically stable mining site: it the region is unstable, it must be pacified. The British strategy of 'Divide and Rule' ensured no power ever arose that could challenge their supremacy. This policy continues to this day, as a result of which the Arab world is a world divided. On the other hand, is cheapest by sea, and if regional nations cannot provide secure transport corridors, extra-regional powers are than willing to step in to do the needful.