Ted Koppel wrote an article entitled "Will Fight For Oil" in the Friday New York Times in which he systematically argued that oil has been the heart of nearly every major US foreign policy decision for decades. Regarding the assertion that Iraq was not about oil: "it would have been the first time in more than 50 years that the uninterrupted flow of Persian Gulf oil was not a central element of American foreign policy." Unfortunately, you need to be a paid subscriber to access the article online. If you are one, it's
here. If not, you can read a (Democratic slanted) review of it and its implications
here.
A bonus from the Tom Paine review. This is a quote from Dick Cheney during Gulf War I:
| Sec. of Defense Dick Cheney wrote: |
"We're there because the fact of the matter is that part of the world controls the world supply of oil, and whoever controls the supply of oil, especially if it were a man like Saddam Hussein, with a large army and sophisticated weapons, would have a stranglehold on the American economy and on — indeed on the world economy."
The US went to Iraq in order to maintain control over Persian Gulf oil. All the hype about fighting terrorism and spreading democracy was just to appease consciences.
Edit: Here are a few paragraphs I found from the Koppel article:
Let us, as lawyers say, stipulate that the Bush administration was genuinely concerned that weapons of mass destruction, which they firmly believed to be in Saddam Hussein's arsenal, might be shared with the same Qaeda leadership that planned the horrific events of 9/11. That would have been a reasonable motive for invading Iraq; but surely now, three years later, when the existence of those weapons is no longer an issue, it would be insufficient reason for the United States to remain there.
Let us further acknowledge that continuing to put American lives at risk in Iraq purely for the protection of Israel would arouse, in some quarters, anti-Semitic murmurs, if not growls.
But the Bush administration's touchiness about charges that we acted — and are still acting — in Iraq "because of oil"? Now that's curious. Keeping oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz has been bedrock American foreign policy for more than a half-century.
Fifty-three years ago, British and American intelligence officers conspired to help bring about the overthrow of Iran's prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Mossadegh's shortcomings, in the eyes of Whitehall and the State Department, were an unseemly affinity for the Tudeh Party (the Iranian Communists) and his plans to nationalize the Iranian oil industry. The prospect of the British oil industry being forced to give way to Soviet influence over the Iranian oil spigot called for drastic action. Following a military coup, Mossadegh was arrested, imprisoned for three years and then held under house arrest until his death in 1967. Power was then effectively concentrated in the hands of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
Edit again:
Z-Net has a review up now too. They argue that it's not so much about control over the oil as control over the nations who
want the oil.
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