The Chilcot Report, released on July 6, 2016, revealed the truth behind the US invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussain was not a threat and there was no evidence of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) that were claimed as an excuse to invade the Middle East. The report reveals how the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair along with the US President George W. Bush plotted a path to war just hours after the 9/11 attacks where an extremely clever plan and strategy would require to get rid of Saddam. Of course, the real reason was the spoils of war – control of oil industry – through a protracted war in the Middle East, the effects of which are evident to this day in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
For all those who wish to understand the true nature and ambitions of the Western powers in the Middle East, the Chilcot Report must be read in tandem with Rocky M. Mirza’s How the West was Won and Lost: Athenian Democracy to the BRICS: 5th Century BCE to 2016. The book, a third in the series of books by Mirza, reveals how the western empires right up to the American Empire, have exploited the Third World, stealing resources and setting up regimes that would safeguard their interests. Mirza’s book attempts a thorough investigation of the rise of the Western empires and addresses the interesting yet difficult question of just why, beginning around 1500, did a few small polities on the western end of the Eurasian landmass come to dominate the rest of the world?
