At the completion of the invasion of Iraq in July 2003, Tony Blair gave a speech to the US Congress in which he declared: "There has never been a time ... when, except in the most general sense, a study of history provides so little instruction for our present day" (Quoted by John Tosh, Why History Matters, p.5). Gordon Brown, with a Ph.D in history and current British Prime Minister, supported that invasion.
Blair was probably speaking out of ignorance rather than deceit, for that was not the first time British military forces had invaded Iraq. In 1914 Britain acted alone in invading Iraq (then called Mesopotamia) to drive out the Ottoman Turks. Britain then administered Iraq as a Mandate of the League of Nations until 1934, and remained in a position of informal influence until the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958. Strategic interests were the initial motivation for the invasion, but important oil reserves were known to exist. As Marian Kent's study of this period shows, "by 1920 Mesopotamian oil ... had come to occupy a major place in British military and diplomatic concerns in the Middle East" (Oil and Empire: British Policy and Mesopotamian Oil, 1900-1920, 1976.)
Politicians are often ill-informed, but Alan Greenspan admitted that the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was really aimed at protecting Middle East oil reserves. "I thought the issue of weapons of mass destruction as the excuse was utterly beside the point", he said. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2170602,00.html).
-- Lew