On closer inspection, it is evident that while many of these interventions espoused humanitarian principles, they were primarily designed to advance US strategic and geopolitical interests. Critics have been right to argue that the Iraq war was fought to gain strategic control of Middle Eastern oil and to dismantle the state-dominated economic structures of the region. No Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) were found in Iraq, and overthrowing a dictatorship could not have been a primary consideration, given America’s support for authoritarian regimes and dictatorships across the world (such as Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia). These contradictions can be seen in the recent Libya conflict, where the US suddenly endorsed regime change despite years of supporting Colonel Gaddafi. Other ‘humanitarian interventions’ have similarly been motivated in large part by self-interested strategic and geopolitical considerations.