----- Original Message ----- From: "Wojtek Sokolowski" <sokol at jhu.edu>
> A question to the list:
>
> Attacking Iraq makes little sense from the point of view of "war on
> terrorism" - since Iraq is almost certainly not involved in sponsoring
> terrorism. The question thus remains, why Bush and his entourage pursue it?
>
> The "wag the dog" explanations (e.g. vendetta, mobilizing popular support
> to win the November election) do not seem very convincing.
>
> One possibility is that Iraq is merely a diversion, and the real targets
> are Saudi Arabia and Iran. Attacking these countries makes perfect sense
> from the point of view of "war on terrorism" because these countries are
> main sponsors of terrorist networks. Any thoughts?
>
> wojtek
>
================
The US elites could be hedging their bets on the serious possibility of the collapse of the Saudi Gov. due to intergenerational conflicts in the Royal family and the growing unrest amongst the educated unemployed. If SA collapsed and Saddam was still in control of Iraq, we'd probably see some nasty price spikes on the oil markets. It doesn't look like Russia or any of the other Caspian area countries will have the infrastructure in place for massive exports before SA starts to fall apart so getting rid of Saddam as quickly as possible could, despite the chaos that would ensue, scare off the more radical factions in SA from tinkering with global oil supplies. And if the US maintained control over Iraq's oil output, potential supply problems could be averted even if SA imploded. The US does not seem to want to have SA collapse; I suspect that's what they're very afraid of, the contagion effects on Islamic culture would be immense.
Ian