So what do you think Iraq is all about?

[Incongruous]

Not plenty enough or else public opinion and the vast majority of politicians would not have said go go go!

@ Boba - Oil is an underlying constant with anything to do with the Middle East. To say the war was about oil is as accurate as saying the earth is flat, from some perspectives it is but there are also a lot of other adjectives to describe the earth and the situation in Iraq. What I said is not a load of crap, what was happening there was a load of crap.

Saddam wasn’t a douche bag? Please.

What?
I'm not sure I understand, the earth is clearly round and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot and not worth listening to. Is that what you were saying?

You see, if you read those links I posted, it is very clear the war was about oil. If the war was about getting rid of Saddam, more time and money would have gone into the invasion. But the hawks saw a chance to get rich quick, or at least they thought they did.

Saddam was no where near as bad as the Saudis, If you wish to refute that I suggest you go and read up on their conquest and subjection of the Hijaz. Saddam was turned into the bad guy by the first Gulf War, when he was well within his rights to invade Kuwait for its blatant illegal drilling in contested Oil Fields and selling of oil well below the accepted OPEC price. Saddam was the only man that consistently tried to avert war, everyone else involved went looking for it.

[yesdachi]

What?
I'm not sure I understand, the earth is clearly round and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot and not worth listening to. Is that what you were saying?

You see, if you read those links I posted, it is very clear the war was about oil. If the war was about getting rid of Saddam, more time and money would have gone into the invasion. But the hawks saw a chance to get rich quick, or at least they thought they did.

Saddam was no where near as bad as the Saudis, If you wish to refute that I suggest you go and read up on their conquest and subjection of the Hijaz. Saddam was turned into the bad guy by the first Gulf War, when he was well within his rights to invade Kuwait for its blatant illegal drilling in contested Oil Fields and selling of oil well below the accepted OPEC price. Saddam was the only man that consistently tried to avert war, everyone else involved went looking for it.

Saying that the Iraq war is all about oil is as accurate as saying that the earth is flat.

What I see from the articles and what I said earlier is that opportunistic people/companies swooped in after the war started, to taking advantage of the messed up situation. These opportunistic people/companies didn’t plan and coordinate the war, we have proven time and again that we have a difficult time planning to find our butt with both hands; I don’t think we could secretly plan a Middle Eastern invasion at the whim of corporate USA, who also have a difficult time finding their butts with both hands. If you think we did you may want to line your hat with some tinfoil “they are listening”.

Saddam was worse than the Saudis because he was a loud mouth who pushed at us at every oppertunity. He basically asked for war by telling W and the US that we couldn’t do anything to him even if he broke all the UN rules and flaunted WMD rumors at us and flew in no fly zones and said we had a small wiener. We were already fighting over there and he was a douche bag that our people already hated so why not whip out our wiener and slap him in the face with it (not the first time taking out our wiener has gotten us in to a mess). The Saudis on the other hand tell us they love the color of our money and compliment us on our wieners size. The atrocities of Saddam may be no better or worse than the Saudis but Saddam was a nagging thorn that consistently pestered. (Lesson to Ahmadinejad and Chavez)

@ Tribes – what do you mean, even Hillary voted to authorize the war. The Iraq invasion was massively popular. It wasn’t until after we were there for a while that people started asking where the WMD’s were and then getting out their “I told you so” response.

[Tribesman]

Saddam was worse than the Saudis because he was a loud mouth who pushed at us at every oppertunity.

You should be old enoughand wise enough to know by now that it isn't the loud mouth you haveto watch out for , its the quiet little bugger who is always the dangerous one .

@ Tribes – what do you mean, even Hillary voted to authorize the war. The Iraq invasion was massively popular. It wasn’t until after we were there for a while that people started asking where the WMD’s were and then getting out their “I told you so” response.

Oh so when you say politicians and population you meant the American popualation and the American politicians were dumb , sorry I thought you meant worldwide .

[yesdachi]

Oh so when you say politicians and population you meant the American popualation and the American politicians were dumb , sorry I thought you meant worldwide .

I was just referring to Americans, the rest of the world is way to smart to get involved in wars for stupid reasons.

[Dâriûsh]

I was just referring to Americans, the rest of the world is way to smart to get involved in wars for stupid reasons.

Quite. I'm sure the reasons in Darfur are sound. As are they in Chad, Thailand, Columbia, Palestine, Georgia...

[Ronin]

Quite. I'm sure the reasons in Darfur are sound. As are they in Chad, Thailand, Columbia, Palestine, Georgia...

that´s quite a lofty group of "enlightened" places you´re using for comparison there....

[macsen rufus]

Primarily about oil. Everything in the Middle East has been about oil for the past half a century, including US support for Israel.

It's not a simple "let's make some money" or "let's take over some wells" sort of equation, though. There is a grander geopolitical strategy, which is very much about supporting "friendly" regimes in a region that is largely unfriendly to western, and especially American, interests. Saddam always was a douche-bag, for a long while he was a friendly douchebag. His douchebaggery wasn't an issue until he stopped being friendly. The biggest bunch of douchebags out there are probably the al-Saud family, and they are sitting very precariously on a tinderkeg of a country. I don't see how much longer we'll be talking abouth the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the People's Islamic Revolutionary Republic of Arabia may not be far away. Losing the Shah in Iran (incidentally another douchebag) scared the West in a big way. For the same to happen in the country that has been the swing producer for the intervening period would spell curtains for the western economies.

I mentioned Israel - it is in US interests for Israel to survive, as it diverts the anger of the "Arab street" from their own, more immediate enemies - the very friendly regimes that oppress them. So long as Arabs are wasting energy railing against 'the Zionists', and by extension America, they are not toppling their own governments. And it is the Saudi regime that is most crucial here - they can play along at the "anti-Zionist" game for the benefit of home consumption, but know full well that they can't DO anything. Without Israel the lid will blow across the Arab world. Saudi Arabia is insturmental in keeping oil dollar-denominated. America doesn't necessarily need to physically control the wells, but it absolutely needs to control the PRICE. Only a swing producer can do that. Until the 60s-70s the US itself was the swing producer. Once Saudi Arabia took over that role, the Saudi regime had to be kept onside - that means guaranteeing the "Arab Street" won't topple them. A lot of the "oil shocks" and ructions throughout the 70s were down to re-establishing that economic system. For a major oil exporter with no other eggs in its economic basket, a stable oil market is crucial, hence the Saudi interest in cooperating with the west. Another pay-off is the military technology to enable control of their fractious population.

Iraq has a border with Saudi Arabia, where a significant proportion of US deployment is based (two divisions, IIRC). Iraq is within striking distance of Hormuz, and Iran. The Great Game in Central Asia is hotting up, and Russia is resurgent. Iraq is well placed in all of these arenas. Despite all the rhetoric about installig a "democratic" regime in Iraq, that will fall by the wayside as soon as a workable "friendly" regime comes about. One that will allow a huge military presence to remain without looking like an "occupying force".

Like it or not, oil is a finite resource, and the western economies are as deeply addicted as any crack addict. The model of constant economic growth is predicated on a finite resource. Sooner or later (I personally hold to the view that it will be sooner) there will be a crunch. At which point, whoever has the most influence in the Middle east will have a strong position in the following game of "last man standing". There are other plays for crunch time, but the Neo-Con agenda is strictly based on the "last man standing" scenario.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

1. First and foremost, oil and the petroleum products refined from it are vital to all modern economies. Were Iraq in particular and the Middle East in general not sitting on a very large amount of this very valuable stuff, then NONE of the concerns of the region would have the salience they now do.

Were oil not part of the equation in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, then the USA may well NOT have put in the effort it did to build a coalition and liberate Kuwait that it did. Since Gulf One generated most of the situation that helped lead to Gulf Two, it is a certainty that oil was central (at least at one remove) to our attack on Iraq in 2003. This is not, however, an absolute. We had far less to gain from pounding Serbia around regarding Kosovo, but we did become involved there. USA motives and policies are subject to variation.


2. Those labeling the war "illegal" rest their arguments on either a) the material presented by Count Arach above or b) the failure of Congress to specifically declare war.

re: a) Legalistically, the USA can/did claim that Hussein's regime, by failing to live up completely and fully to the agreement ending the Gulf One conflict, had abrogated the agreement underlying the cessation of violence in 1991 and that the USA was merely renewing that conflict as any participating UN nation had a right to do.

To be fair, the UN itself did not specifically authorize a renewal of violence and many of the members of the Gulf One coalition specifically argued against such a renewal. Some, but NOT all of those opposing a renewal of the conflict may have been tainted/influenced by the "oil for food" scandals.

re: b) The US Congress did provide Bush with carte blanche in the use of force in prosecuting the war on Terror against Al Queda and any nation supporting/harboring Al Queda. I shudder every time I think of it, since I think Congress was being a collective group of wusses in not requiring the President to secure a separate DoW for each phase needed, but the SCOTUS has not balked over Congress' chosen means of "declaring war." The Bush administration did provide evidence of some links between AQ and Hussein (pretty thin ones, admittedly).

Also, Bush did specifically secure the renewed support of Congress for combat operations in and against Hussein's Iraq. While not a formal DoW, Congress -- and not the President -- did authorize the use of force. Thus, on U.S. Constitutional grounds, the war is not illegal.

Note: The legality of the war in Iraq is separate from its advisability. A good case could be made that there were a number of other nations whose support for AQ was more avid (like pretty much ANYBODY else in the M.E. including the Saudis) and that Hussein's efforts to maintain a WMD program and to support Hamas et al were really no different in 2002 then they had been in 1994 (and were also internal fictions that Western intelligence all too readily accepted as factual threats). As such, the choice to make Iraq the next phase in the WoT was an optional one. Many would argue it was a poor choice, and virtually everyone would agree that planning for a post-Saddam Iraq was completely inadequate (possibly criminally so).


3. I think the real reasons for this war in Iraq were geo-political. Underneath it all, I believe the USA was trying to physically and politically isolate Iran between a somewhat pro-western Iraq and a somewhat pro-western Afghanistan. Close in US/coalition basing would also figure into this "check" on Iranian ambition as well as serve to increase the USA's ability to put pressure on Syria and the M.E. in general. I agree with the general sentiment that the MDW threat etc. was, in part, a pretext. I would also agree that a "we should finish what we started in 1991" sentiment was also at play.

Neo-cons also believed that the "magic of democracy" as seen in a renewed Iraq would serve as an example that would drag all of the other middle eastern states toward this stance. While not impossible (though many think it so), little planning to bring this to fruition was made. Even if things do trend this way, it will not be in the simplistic fashion that undergirded this line of thought among neo-con planners.


4. There is a persistent attempt to categorize the Invasion of Iraq as a hunt for oil. I have no doubt that any number of parties are, will, and will continue to seek self-enrichment by exploiting these resources if at all possible (I would argue that the same can be said of the oil for food program). Also, as noted in popint #1 above, oil is an underlying element in any decision regarding the M.E. Reducing the entirety of the conflict's origins to this mantra is, however, simplistic at best. As the above points aver, there are numerous antecedents and objectives that were at play in this choice.

If all that was sought were oil, we had just as ready a pretext provided to us by Chavez in Venezuela and were far better positioned (and staffed with language specialists) to establish a puppet regime in Caracas then we were to do so in Iraq. We could even use Mexico's tacit use of illegal immigrants as a means of siphoning money from the US Economy as a pretext to invade them, calling it an act of war. In short, there were easier targets by far available if the only reason for this confict were personal and/or national enrichment.

[Tribesman]

re: a) Legalistically, the USA can/did claim that Hussein's regime, by failing to live up completely and fully to the agreement ending the Gulf One conflict, had abrogated the agreement underlying the cessation of violence in 1991 and that the USA was merely renewing that conflict as any participating UN nation had a right to do.

They had no right to do so under that agreement Seamus , the agreement was of nations acting under the authority of the UN and as such legalistically they ceded their soveriegn authority as far as using that document goes to the authority of the UN ....and the UN refused to renew the conflict because the "evidence" Powell was given to present to them had most of them laughing their tits off .

3. I think the real reasons for this war in Iraq were geo-political. Underneath it all, I believe the USA was trying to physically and politically isolate Iran between a somewhat pro-western Iraq and a somewhat pro-western Afghanistan. Close in US/coalition basing would also figure into this "check" on Iranian ambition as well as serve to increase the USA's ability to put pressure on Syria and the M.E. in general.

Unfortunately for America and the wider region the people who were selling America the information that they swallowed wholeheartedly in their desire to check Iranian influence were being employed by ......Iran

[Tribesman]

I was just referring to Americans, the rest of the world is way to smart to get involved in wars for stupid reasons.

Hey easy now Yesdachi thats quite enough of that , down with all that sort of thing .
Then again some polticians , take Bertie for example (corrupt scumbag that he is ) .
He was quite plain and open why he supported Americas efforts , it was a good opertunity for Ireland to make some money .

[Redleg]

They had no right to do so under that agreement Seamus , the agreement was of nations acting under the authority of the UN and as such legalistically they ceded their soveriegn authority as far as using that document goes to the authority of the UN ....and the UN refused to renew the conflict because the "evidence" Powell was given to present to them had most of them laughing their tits off .

Incorrect the United Nations does not have any soveriegnity - nor can the United States give up its soveriegnity to another. Now the United Nations can do what it wishes but it does not constitute an authority or a soveriegn authority for any nation. Until you can actual prove that the Hague Convention concerning the signing of peace or cease fires does not apply to individual signator nations this arguement has little legal standing. Which is one of the primary reasons why no illegal war crime charges have been applied to anyone that is involved in the conflict.

Unfortunately for America and the wider region the people who were selling America the information that they swallowed wholeheartedly in their desire to check Iranian influence were being employed by ......Iran

Oh there were others involved, Iran had a big part in the equation but many others were involved to include good old Saddam himself.

[Incongruous]

Saying that the Iraq war is all about oil is as accurate as saying that the earth is flat.

What I see from the articles and what I said earlier is that opportunistic people/companies swooped in after the war started, to taking advantage of the messed up situation. These opportunistic people/companies didn’t plan and coordinate the war, we have proven time and again that we have a difficult time planning to find our butt with both hands; I don’t think we could secretly plan a Middle Eastern invasion at the whim of corporate USA, who also have a difficult time finding their butts with both hands. If you think we did you may want to line your hat with some tinfoil “they are listening”.

Saddam was worse than the Saudis because he was a loud mouth who pushed at us at every oppertunity. He basically asked for war by telling W and the US that we couldn’t do anything to him even if he broke all the UN rules and flaunted WMD rumors at us and flew in no fly zones and said we had a small wiener. We were already fighting over there and he was a douche bag that our people already hated so why not whip out our wiener and slap him in the face with it (not the first time taking out our wiener has gotten us in to a mess). The Saudis on the other hand tell us they love the color of our money and compliment us on our wieners size. The atrocities of Saddam may be no better or worse than the Saudis but Saddam was a nagging thorn that consistently pestered. (Lesson to Ahmadinejad and Chavez)

Ok, to the first part, well yes actually I do believe Big Oil is powerful enough to dictate U.S foreign policy in the region, ARAMCO used to be really good at it.

Saddam was pissed because you supported openly hostile and blatantly illegal Kuwaiti drilling and oil sales. He had, as did the rest of OPEC the right to deal with the Kuwaitis however he saw fit.
The U.S went in because Iraq was just too damned powerful for an Arab nation, Imperialism and nothing else...