1918: British Secretary of War Writes That Control over Oil in Iraq and Iran Is ‘a First Class British War Aim’

In a letter to British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, Sir Maurice Hankey, Britain’s First Secretary of the War Cabinet, writes, “Oil in the next war will occupy the place of coal in the present war, or at least a parallel place to coal. The only big potential supply that we can get under British control is the Persian [now Iran] and Mesopotamian [now Iraq] supply… Control over these oil supplies becomes a first class British war aim.” [Yergin, 1993; Muttitt, 2005]