© Matthew Buck Hack Cartoons for tribunecartoons.com

The invasion of Iraq was widely held to have been motivated in part by the urge to possess the under utilised oil resources the country possessed (see above). Now of course, much of this is being instead carried off by the jihadis of the rapidly emerging Caliphate state in parts of northern and western Iraq – and also in neighbouring Syria.

Patrick Cockburn has written a fine explanation of the huge change underway for the London Review of Books.