Here is my ten pence worth:
1) It is not necessary to argue the toss about 'what was really driving US policy' i.e. identify single causes. It has been my experience that there are often multiple considerations and feed-ins to US policy decision making. You may all be right (to an extent). This of course does not preclude a ranking of what may or may not be the most important factors (which leads to the second point).
2) Oil is obviously a major factor in any advanced industrial states planning. However, I think it is a mistake to refract US interventions in Afghanistan or even Iraq as being driven by the sectoral interests of US oil transnationals. This may be a factor, but I think a far more plausible explanation is less about the specific economic interests of these transnationals than an account of the role that Oil has played in underwriting US hegemony of world capitalism post-WW II. By underwriting 'stability' in the Mid East through its diplomacy and massive military transfers, the US gains enormous leverage over both its allies and potential rivals for world hegemony. Throw into this equation the fact that oil is a fungible resource, the industrial economies are becoming massively more reliant on foreign sources of oil (inc China), and as yet only the US has the power-projection capacity to underwrite security of supply to world markets and I think it is clear that sitting on top of Iraq's oil is a pretty important geo-strategic consideration for US planners. Incidentally, the model of world oil to date has been less about the US making sure that 'it' gets enough, and rather about ensuring that there is a continuity of supply onto world oil markets. US 'oil interventions' thus tend to effect a transnational outcome i.e. good for other leading capitalist powers. Whether this will continue given some of the factors ive outlined above is perhaps one of the biggest fault lines of future conflict in the 21st century i.e. are we going to move from a transnational imperialism underwritten by US hegemony or to a posture of potential inter-imperialist rivalry.
cheers,
Doug.
> --- Yoshie wrote:
>
>> Is it necessarily nefarious for companies to want to build
>> pipelines,
>> oil or natural gas, in foreign nations?
>
> No, but I wasn't talking about "companies." I was talking about
> "nefarious business developers," a separate subspecies of business
> developers, and not non-nefarious business developers.
>
> Sheesh.
>
>