Access to and Domination of the Persian Gulf Strategic Oil Resources and the US Invasion of Iraq

Adopting a unilateral policy, the United States attacked Iraq without permission from the United Nation's Security Council in March 2003. The first intervention of the United States took place in Iraq in 1991 with permission from the Security Council, accompanied by a coalition of the US allies. As a result of this military intervention, the United States managed to liberate Kuwait at that time, but the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was quite different from the previous one. What this research tends to investigate is the main reason for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. To answer this question, the issue of access to and domination of the Persian Gulf Strategic Oil Resources is presented as a main hypothesis and is confirmed. In order to confirm the research hypothesis, the historical attempts of great powers for controlling strategic oil resources was discussed. Additionally, the role of relevant negotiations (oil lobbies) and multinational oil companies was considered. Subsequent to this phase, the geo-strategic and geo-economic position of the Persian Gulf and its oil strategies in the region were taken into consideration.