The 'O' word no one dares mention when talking about Iraq

Barack Obama sanctioned a number of air strikes in northern Iraq this weekend in a bid to help the stranded Yazidi community escape the grip of the Islamic State.

And as aid supplies left RAF Brize Norton destined for Mount Sinjar, David Cameron echoed the US president's message - "a way must be found to get these people to safety and to avert a genocide".

But as Robert Fisk points out in his column for the Independent today, as noble as this Western intervention may be portrayed, there is one key ingredient that no one dares mention - Kurdistan accounts for 43.7 billion barrels of Iraq’s 143 billion barrels of oil reserves.

When “we” liberated Kuwait in 1991, we all had to recite – again and again – that this war was not about oil.

And when we invaded Iraq in 2003, again we had to repeat, ad nauseam, that this act of aggression was not about oil – as if the US Marines would have been sent to Mesopotamia if its major export was asparagus.

And now, as we protect our beloved Westerners in Irbil and succour the Yazidis in the mountains of Kurdistan and mourn for the tens of thousands of Christians fleeing from the iniquities of Isis, we must not – do not and will not – mention oil.

• Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk: West’s ‘mandate’ limited by national borders – and don’t dare mention oil