The slogan was repeated around the world: "no blood for oil". But blood and oil have flowedtogether for a long time. From the betrayal of the Arab world by the French and the British following the fallof the Turkish empire in 1917 to the latest war against Iraq, Western policy has been dominated by oil.Western thirst for oil has been satisfied through opposition to Middle Eastern reformists in favor of the mostbackward and corrupt traditional rulers, through support to the strategic asset of aggressively modern Israel,through fanning the flames of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, then the 1991 Gulf War followed by endlessembargo and bombing of Iraq.