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Five hundred years ago Europeans set out conquering countries of what is now called the Global South and discovered a world full of natural wealth. They conquered to extract silver. They conquered to extract gold. They conquered to mine diamonds. They came for pepper, for nutmeg, for cardamom, for bananas. They conquered islands and populated them with slaves from other parts of the Global South to cultivate sugar for their cakes and tea. They deforested our lands to cultivate tea, coffee and rubber. And then they discovered oil and gas.

For five hundred years, the Global West – defined today by membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) – comprising mainly western Europe and North America, went around the world conquering territories, enslaving people, establishing colonial regimes and extracting resources.

At the turn of the last century, electricity and the automobile were invented. Oil became the new gold. While oil reserves were found in the United States, much larger reserves were found in West Asia. Britain had secured control over the region. Hitler set out in search of it and was defeated. The United States stepped in and took control of the resources. Britain and France had already played a helpful role, creating Arab potentates and calling them independent nations. Lines were drawn on sand to create Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

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Britain and the United States then created a puppet regime, citing stray passages from the Old Testament, and called it Israel. A policeman for the region. Israel’s job was to make sure that it would guarantee the supply of oil to the West by keeping the Sheikhs on short leash. When the government in Tehran refused to play by the rules of the Western game, it was toppled. A puppet installed as king.

Given this history,........

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