Civil Wars

“After a rigorous and systematic analysis, we found that the role of economic incentives emerges as a key factor in intervention,” said co-author Dr Vincenzo Bove, of the University of Warwick. “Before the Isis forces approached the oil-rich Kurdish north of Iraq, Isis was barely mentioned in the news. But once Isis got near oil fields, the siege of Kobani in Syria became a headline and the US sent drones to strike Isis targets,” he added. [The study] found that the decision to intervene was dominated by the third-party’s need for oil, far more than historical, geographic or ethnic ties. The US maintains troops in Persian Gulf oil producers and has a history of supporting conservative autocratic states… David Cameron was instrumental in setting up the coalition that intervened in Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya in 2011, a country with sizeable oil reserves.