>http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EG22Ak05.htm
>
Pretty good article. Only quibble I'd have is over the paragraph wich reads,
"Whether we like it or not, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia possess 45 percent of the world's oil reserves. Iraq and Iran control probably another 20 percent. For Japan, the US and the eurozone, access to those petroleum reserves is vital. Without it, their economies would come to a stop. This was clearly a war begun for ideology and not for oil. But an American departure from the Middle East would make it all about oil. The protesters who say it is all about oil today would find to their tears that they are depressingly right."
I don't think this was ever a war begun for ideology; the war was always over oil. I don't mean to invoke that "no blood for oil" slogan, which only made me wonder about the blood-oil exchange rates. Yes, the immediate benefits would go to oil companies, especially if they contributed a little extra to the Bush campaign. But most of the world is dependent upon oil, and that this is precisely the sort of natural resource for which wars are fought. And regardless of who's profiting, it's not exactly safe to rely on the Saudis for such an important aspect of our lives.
It'd be great if we'd spent the last twenty-five years learning from the OPEC embargoes, and cultivated energy sources that didn't require relying on despotic regimes. But we haven't. I'm amazed that the Democrats haven't used this as a terrific campaign issue: "We left the 1970s trying to reduce our reliance on oil. That ended when the Republicans took over the Presidency. Now, thanks to Reagan and Bush, we're more dependent than ever on the Saudis-- the very same people who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center. And now we're trapped in another Vietnam in the Middle East because we failed to follow through on the Democratic initiatives of twenty years ago..."