Going in circles...

Atanu Dey gives some background to the recent hullabaloo about British personnel taken hostage by Iran : Ever since oil was discovered there at the turn of the 20th century, Iran has been the object of plunder and high politics. From then onwards, both Russia and the UK repeatedly tried to control the country. Then, during World War II, Germany needed Iran’s oil and, in order to prevent this, UK forces invaded Iran and opened a pipeline to Russia, then our ally in fighting Germany. Then there are references to the Iraq occupation and the real reasons behind it: Ever since the Germans tried to build a Berlin-Mosul railway a century ago, oil has been the main motivator of Western nation policy towards the Middle East, but most American and British people are totally unaware of this as they cheerfully pump petrol into their cars. They still don’t fully realise why Bush and Blair invaded Iraq in 2003 nor, in the latest foolish episode, why Bush persuaded Blair to trespass on Iranian waters in the hope of provoking Iran into excessive reaction, giving cause for powerful American response with, Bush naively assumed, world-wide support. This may be too simplistic a statement of facts. Nevertheless, I think this holds true in most scenarios: think Afghanistan where the Americans , for so long, supported Osama Bin Laden when he was fighting the Soviets. Now he is enemy number one. Closer home, the Indian Army helped train the now-dangerous LTTE into the efficient fighting unit that it is now. Today, we are hunting them. The world, it seems, is going in circles. It would be mighty funny if not for the fact that millions of innocent lives are lost or destroyed in the process.