>US already enjoys the stranglehold over the supply of oil to Europe and
Japan on account of US navy's domination over sealanes in Indian ocean
There's a difference, in dealing with your allies, between exerting economic force against them and resorting to direct military force. An oil emargo against Japan, in the late 1930s, led to Pearl Harbor. And the French have the Bomb.
> (assuming such stranglehold is desirable from the US viewpoint.)
Why assume it is not? Because the US is such good pals with Europe?
US doesn't need to attack Iraq to achieve it. Who owns oilfields and refines oil is less relevant.
> One would also have to explain why Europe and Japan can not get their oil
supplies from Russia.
Actually I have been speculating, since the recent nadir in US-European relations, that in the medium term, the current NATO may give way to a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis, based on Russian oil, German economic might, and the French Bomb (course the Russians have the Bomb too, but their technology is primitive). If I were GWB and his advisers, I'd be seriously concerned about this. The US has antagonized Russia by cozying up to the 'stans; it has obviously seriously daamged relations with the French and ther Germans, and the parties may see that they have more in common with each other than with the US, especially inits current unilateralist mode. I wouldn't expect "old Europe" to try to completew ith the US as an imperialist hyperpower, but rather to pursue a very independent path. jks
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