> But they didn't do, it was Iraq. And while NK might
> have done to show who's boss, the fact that they
> picked Iraq when NK might have done better, if, for
> example, they wanted to get rid if a bad guiy who was
> actually a potential military threat, shows that
> there are other forces at play.
Yes, but those "other forces" are quite possibly distinct from any desire of the US government to control the oil market. For instance, NK probably has nukes, and even if they don't, they have the conventional military power to squash Seoul in an instant. If we thought Iraq could and would blow Tel Aviv up if we were to invade, we probably wouldn't.
> Oil, for example. But
> note that I approached the idea of choosing one factor
> as dominant with considerable diffidence. That was
> Thos' question, not mine. I have a three factor
> analysis. I stand by it so far, and still think that
> of the three factors, oil is the most central. I doubt
> that we'd be here today without the other two, though.
> jks
I don't doubt that oil is a consideration (at least, it was an explicit reason for the first Gulf War). But your suggestion that the motivation is to gain a stranglehold over Europe and Japan strikes me as bizarre.
-- Luke