> Oil (and gas) was certainly part of the essential background of the war.
> If the primary product of Iraq were asparagus, we wouldn't have half the
> American military there. The control of what the US State Department, in
> 1945, described as "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the
> greatest material prizes in world history" -- Mideast energy resources --
> has been the cornerstone of US policy in the region ever since.
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Did the US have to invade Iraq to have access to it's energy supplies? Was
the cash-strapped Baathist government refusing to supply it with oil and
gas? Who placed sanctions on whom?
Recently declassifed FBI documents show Saddam was well ready to cooperate with the US, as he had in the past, rather than confront it. There's no reason to suppose such cooperation would not have included allowing US oil firms to bid on contracts to develop Iraqi fields.
The New York Daily News last week reported:
"Asked how he would have faced "fanatic" Iranian ayatollahs if Iraq had been proven toothless by UN weapons inspectors in 2003, Saddam said he would have cut a deal with Bush.
"Hussein replied Iraq would have been extremely vulnerable to attack from Iran and would have sought a security agreement with the U.S. to protect it from threats in the region,' according to a 2004 FBI report among the declassified files."
Of course, the US seeks to control global energy supplies. But it does not do so through the direct exercise of control by US oil corporations, nor by invading and occupying oil producing countries which jealously guard their oil supplies.
When the US has confronted "rogue" regimes, it has typically relied on economic pressure, political subversion, covert military operations, and, on occasion, selective air strikes to force them into line. The Bush administration's decision to put tens of thousands of US boots on the ground in Iraq aroused fierce controversy within the US defence and security establishment and general staff because it was such a radical departure from doctrine, and the forebodings of Brzezinski, Scowcroft, Zinni, Eagleburger, Kissinger, and others proved to be entirely justified.
That's why, for example, the US has not invaded Venezuela or Iran, who are also not asparagus producers.
While Iraq's oil supplies were an incentive, as I acknowledged, other geopolitical and domestic factors weighed more heavily, IMO, in the decision to invade, IMO.