It's a professionally presented, compact history of the Middle East during and after the First World War.There's no particular point in outlining the events because they're far too complicated. The armistice that ended the war in Europe in November, 1918, did little to put an end to the regional conflicts in the Middle East, which continue to this day.The overall impression left with the viewer is that the great powers more or less ruled the place while fighting each other and at the same time suppressing insurgencies based on regional, tribal, religious, and ethnic identities. In effect, following the war's end, Europe carved up the Middle East and handed the parts out to the victors. Then they withdrew their exhausted troops and what emerged was a kaleidoscope of shifting allegiances. Nobody trusted anybody else, not in the Middle East or in Europe. Clemenceau of France literally challenged Britain's Lloyd George to a duel. Betrayal of trust was so common as to be taken for granted.The title, "Blood and Oil," gives the mistaken impression that oil was always as important in the Middle East as it is now. But it wasn't. Oil was certainly an important commodity at the time but not as much as it is today. The horses have disappeared from the streets of the West and the camels provide rides for children in the Middle East. Oil wasn't discovered in Arabia until the 1920s. There's something else going on -- in the Middle East as elsewhere. We look for explanations in philosophy and religion, but the root causes may lie with the reptilian brain.It's a reasonably honest picture but perhaps blames the Western powers a little too much. Yes, Europe drew up the post-war map, but would any other map have prevented the kind of conflicts that have been going on since then? The impression the program left on me, aside from the glum mood, was that the sooner we find alternative energy sources, the better off we'll all be.

Understanding the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the present day is an important stepping-stone to understanding Middle Eastern Politics.The Middle-Eastern theater of WW1 is largely unknown to Americans like me. Marty Callaghan's step-by-step roll-out of the events transpiring during that time, are a necessary backdrop to the claims made at the climax of this film. This is my favourite WW1 documentary. Meticulously detailed with edge of your seat buildup, you know this documentary is going somewhere, and the payoff turns out to be huge. Marty Callaghan delivers.This remarkable documentary accurately conveys the sense that we don't know what we are doing when we meddle over there. We have stepped into a world of traditions and values different than our own.I plugged into this piece in my quest to view all the documentaries I could covering WW1 and WW2. What I got was a brain full of reality.There is no spoiler here, but I can warn you of at least one "aha!" moment as the film draws to a close. I needed three viewings to bake it all in.Take ancient rivalries in the Middle east, add ancient rivals from Europe, all trying to meddle or grab resources, remove the Ottomans, the one stabilizing force the Middle east had, and throw in Russian and American interests, and you have the perfect powder keg.

Wow! Some guy actually took the time and effort to explain the sticky history and politics of the place where we keep sending our soldiers to die. The war in Iraq didn't start with Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, or even the production of oil. It started with an old British guy, David Lloyd George, and an old French guy, Georges Clemenceau, drawing a new map of the Middle East way back during World War One!Little did I realize that our country's foreign policy is based on what France and Great Britain did about 90 years ago. They fought a war against Germany and the Ottoman Empire (the remnant of which is Turkey). When the Western Powers won, they had the gall to carve up these huge chunks of land in the Middle East and call it theirs. They didn't pay attention to how Kurds, Shi'as and Sunnis would live together in a brand-new country called Iraq...sound familiar?Too bad that Bush and company didn't have "Blood and Oil" available before they decided to invade Iraq. Could have saved us -- and the Iraqis -- a lot of tragedy. Let's face it, the US is only in Iraq for the oil. Before us, the British and French sent soldiers to the Middle East for the same reason....it's the oil. And they were so surprised when all the Muslims in these newfangled "nations" started to rise up against them. Insurrection, violence, civil war, anti-Western sentiment...hey, that also sounds familiar!If you want to know how all the BS in the Middle East got started, and check out the facts/lessons that the White House should have heeded...then get this very cool program...with lots of great photos and movie footage. Now, it does have quite a bit of military history. So if that's something you don't dig, then maybe you should pass. But the writer does relate the fighting to the weird political intrigue that happened after the war...and relates that to all the decades of chaos in that region of the world...right up to the current mess in Iraq.