McCain Implies Iraq War is for Oil

[Elok]

Originally posted by DanS


I don't think is true in a strict sense. A Middle East without oil probably would still be a tinderbox. We are heavily involved with Egypt, as just one example of a non-oil producing state with which we have broad interests.

So, should that be amended to, "if it weren't for oil and Israel"?

[Darius871]

It's not like we're going to be leaving the Suez Canal to fanatics either. Not to mention that Egypt's secular state at least preserves a regional balance of power which does affect the oil-producing countries.

[VetLegion]

People are still talking about Iraq being for oil? Oil is fungible. If your enemy decides to sell only to China you don't attack him because it doesn't affect prices.

[Darius871]

Well, only some folks think it's to "take" the oil; others think it's to artificially inflate the global price of oil and thereby increase profits. Or so I heard.

[Theben]

He was just taking a page from James Baker.

[Zevico]

The basic reason given by all the sphosticiated Foreign Policy thinkers was that Saddam would make a grab at Kuwait if he had nukes, or that Saddam was too much of an idiot to have nukes as he would destabilise the region in some other way. The region is very important because it has oil. If Saddam had Kuwait, he could (if he so wished) simply bump oil prices up and down as he pleased whilst making threats to anyone he so chose. That means>>Really bad things happen for the world economy OR Saddam dominates the ME. Assuming Saddam was a spaz (and I personally think he was), which would you prefer, yes? Hence on that assumption/based on that evidence (depends which side you're on I guess)>>war was the only option.

[Colon™]

Wouldn't it have been easier if the US would have just let Saddam take Kuwait and kept him as a friend?

[Aeson]

Assuming Saddam was a spaz (and I personally think he was), which would you prefer, yes? Hence on that assumption/based on that evidence (depends which side you're on I guess)>>war was the only option.

Assuming Saddam was a spaz didn't make war the only option unless you also assumed he had WMDs sufficient to carry out the spasm. (Which even if we assume he had WMDs, he didn't.)

[Berzerker]

I thought you trusted the government with your health???

[Berzerker]

Wouldn't it have been easier if the US would have just let Saddam take Kuwait and kept him as a friend?

shhh...stop thinking outside the box

Or we could have just let the Arab nations pester him until he left.

[Zevico]

Assuming Saddam was a spaz didn't make war the only option unless you also assumed he had WMDs sufficient to carry out the spasm. (Which even if we assume he had WMDs, he didn't.)

The assumption is that Saddam was on the way to getting nukes. He needed only 1 for the entire scenario to unfold, because 1 properly aimed nuke==bye bye Saudi oil fields or sionara American bases in Saudi Arabia, or so long Israel, and so forth. He also apparently had the means of delivery to chuck these nukes out (i.e. leftover SCUDs which later proved non-existent as far as I can remember). Alternatively, he could use his intelligence services to smuggle a bomb somewhere in the ME and detonate it.

Wouldn't it have been easier if the US would have just let Saddam take Kuwait and kept him as a friend?

Two problems:
1. You'd be crossing a publicly proclaimed US ally. Not good for your credibility.
2. Saddam suddenly has a large proportion of the world's oil resources in his possession and nukes to threaten Saudi Arabia's oil fields. What's Saudi Arabia going to do? Answer: Everything Saddam wants it to. What Saddam wanted was to be the leader of the Arab world. He wanted to Iraq to be a super power to rival the United States, just as the Soviet Union once did. Friendship doesn't come into it.

[Arrian]

I haven't read the thread, so somebody probably beat me to this, but what the hell:

1: The ME is "strategically important" because of oil.
2: we care about the region b/c of its strategic importance (oil).
3: Therefore, any action we take in the ME can be said to have been "about Oil."

The Iraq war was about a bunch of things. Oil was a factor, but I still think it was an indirect factor. We were friendly with Saddam to counter Iran, which had gone and booted our friend. Why care about Iran? Oil. Then Saddam became the enemy b/c he tried to take over Kuwait. We cared b/c that would've meant he had a larger share of the oil wealth in the region, and the concern was he'd get more. Kuwait's repressive regime was therefore saved. The second Iraqi war had more to do with the mess left after the first one (sanctions, no fly zones/the Kurdish question, some tinpot dictator refusing to kowtow) and 9/11 (omg! Crazy muslims! What can we do? Oh, I know! We'll remake the entire middle east in our image through the cunning use of bombs! Yeah!) than it did oil.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

This is why McCain really ****ed up here, and I don't think many people realise it. It might not even be expressed in the mainstream media.

He clearly stated, in context, that the US went to war in Iraq (second time) for oil, but then questioned on that he spinned it to say that he meant that we fought Desert Storm for oil, not the Iraq war. This, unanalized, sounds better because it's in history, can't be changed now.

But by saying that oil is more important than life, freedom and other principles this country is founded on he creates a real problem for himself going forward. Fast forward to the Iraq war. He will say that that was fought because of Weapons of Mass Destruction, even though there were none found. That works politically, but there are no WoMD in Iraq now. We have made sure of that. We are there now for what? He will say to maintain the security of the region. But what are we maintaining the security of the region for oil or life? But McCain has stated that oil is more important than life. McCain saying that staying in Iraq is for freedom, life or whatever is doublespeak.

Of course, the other candidates all know that we are there for oil, but they didn't **** up.

[Imran Siddiqui]

McCain believes in a realist foriegn policy. Saying life, freedom, etc, should be the reason to go to war would be completely against that. He's not a neo-conservative.

The reason it was important to ally with Kuwait was due to American interests.

And this story really won't go anywhere, because I think the lesson of Iraq is that we should persue a realist foriegn policy and only go into places where our national interest is paramount.

[Arrian]

If McCain had won the 2000 election, I doubt we'd have invaded Iraq. It's hard to construct a "realist" case for invasion. Even if one did (it would have to be based on the imagined/overblown WMD threat), it would've been a different war. Invade, topple, leave. Not to say that would've been better for the average Iraqi (hard to say, really), but it would certainly have been better for US. Best of all, of course, was to avoid invading at all. That goes w/o saying, but this being 'poly, I figured I'd say it just to be clear

-Arrian