The first mineral oil well in the world was found when the Americans were looking for Salt in Ohio in 1841, thirty-eight years after it became the 17th state of the US in 1803. Later on, in 1859, the first oil well was bored at Titusville in Penninsalvania.

The Americans, no doubt, are an enterprising nation as far as economic and financial interests are concerned. With the passage of time they harnessed this gift of God to human resources. Now oil is being drilled in Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirate, Venezuela, and the Caspian basin of Central Asian Republics. Reports indicate the presence of abundant of oil reserves in Alaska and Afghanistan. As a matter of fact the war against terrorism is the ‘US war for oil’. We in Pakistan are also drilling in the hope of striking sizeable quantity of oil in Sindh and Balochistan. Out of the 11 Opec members, 10 are Muslim states having an inclination towards religious sentiments. Muslim Ummah has become an eyesore to the mostly Christian world powers. Out of the six billion world population, nearly 1.5 billion are Muslims and over two billion Christians. Though to them, anyone who professes a religion is a fundamentalist. They do not call themselves fundamentalists as they posses political power over the oil power, which over one billion Muslims posses and thus are dubbed by their political opponents as the fundamentalist.

Since the Americans and the Britons have resources and technical know-how, the latter managed to rule Iran and the users of its oil through the Anglo Iranian Oil Company, while the Americans fared into Saudi Kingdom through Aramco. Kuwait, another oil producing country, has granted concessions to the UK, thus proving that almost every oil producing country has granted concessions to either the US or the UK, through the managers of the liquid gold. This is how oil rules the world because it is the greatest universal source of energy in the world.

In the year 1928, oil was discovered in Kuwait by the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), a London-based joint venture of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, (now the British Petroleum) and the Gulf Oil (now the Chevron Corporation) under a concession granted by the Amir of Kuwait Shaikh Ahmed Al-Jabar Al-Sabah. Kuwait remained under the British protectorate from 1897 to 1961. The KOC was founded in 1934. In 1974, at the insistence of the Kuwaiti people, the state controls over the shares of these oil companies were floated to the public ownership. The high cost of oil led to the Gulf War in 1990, which was said to have been a manipulated affair to control the liquid gold.

Looking at the exploitation of oil by the Anglo-Iranian oil company Dr Mussadaq, the then Iranian Prime Minister nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company against the wishes of Shah of Iran, who was a British stooge, and had to flee the country, later the Anglo-American bloc came to the rescue of the Shah of Iran, who returned to Iran and assumed the Kingship and resumed the power after dismissing Prime Minister Mussadaq.

By and large people were dissatisfied with the Shahenshah and a silent revolution was brewing among them, which resulted in the Iranian revolution headed by Imam Khomeini in 1979. Having been unsuccessful with the Iranians on oil, the Americans wooed Saddam Hussain to attack Iran. He was also wooed to attack Kuwait and now it is the same Saddam Hussain for whose blood the President Bush is hunting for. Diplomacy has these facets. While war without bloodshed is diplomacy. Diplomacy with bloodshed is war, and this is what President Bush aimed at, when he lost the war with Iraq without bloodshed. President Bush is now keen to embark upon the diplomacy with the bloodshed for taking control of the oil, not only of Iraqi oil but also the oil around the Caspian basin. The US, after failing to bring Saddam into the American camp, is all-out to oust him, and reach the shores of the Caspian sea in a bid to attain the oil field, because it was the oil in Baku, which enabled Herr Hitler to fight the World War II till his doom.

The opposition of Russia and Europe to the American adventure in Iraq is not for political resources only; it has commercial interest as well. The Russian oil giant LUKOIL’s contract for the development of Iraqi oil deposits is evaluated to be worth $20 billion. LUKOIL concluded a contract with the Iraqi State Oil Company. The extraction of oil cannot be started until the lifting of the UN sanctions. However, LUKOIL has already managed to invest a lot of money in the development of the deposit. It is worth mentioning here that similar contracts were concluded with the Iraqi government by the Western oil companies as well, for example, the French company Totalfinaelf SA and the Italian company Eni Spa. Now it is becoming obvious that the present American, administration majority of whom is from the leading American oil conglomerates want all Iraqi oil for its own companies.

President Bush in his lust for oil is heading towards the domination of the world but he has forgotten one fact ambition does not always materialze. History is full of such examples and the Soviet Union is the latest example.