japan and europe have gas contracts with iran...to gain some independance.
if the U.S. gains control of iraq oil they could lower oil prices and further cripple the iranian state owned oil industry and actually the whole economy. similiar thing with Iraq....everyone is worried about their gas contracts with various regimes that the U.S. is trying to topple anyway the numbers don't look good because Iran is projected to be a net exporter of oil in 15 years and Japan is the second largest oil consumer in the world.
or atleast it's something like that, hard to keep all this oil junk straight though the end result is to make Europe and Japan more dependant on U.S. controled oil. in the long run.
~M.E.
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