--- On Thu, 7/2/09, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> 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.
>
[WS:] I fully concur. I never believed it was about oil, not even closely. But that leaves us with question - what was it really about?
James Mann (Rise of the Vulcans) makes a point that Iraq was re-fighting the Vietnam war by a bunch Nixon era hawks who got pushed aside by Kissinger and his approach to foreign policy. This explanation sounds plausible, because foreign policy is perhaps the only policy area where the administration can pursue a course of action without Congressional meddling. Sad but true. Bush 'election' (or rather appointment) created a window of opportunity for this group of policy hawks to hold the US government captive and put it on a foreign policy course that fit it ideological agenda. This would have been possible only in the foreign policy field - in any other field the Congress would have prevented any radical change of the course.
I understand that this explanation may not be popular among those who prefer over-socialized "systemic" approach in which individuals do not matter as they merely enact role scripted by socio-economic class positions. I do not think, however, that such "over-socialized" explanation has much to offer in explaining the Iraq war.
If this explanation is true, it offers a unique glimpse into the vulnerability of the US governance system to being hijacked by a small but well positioned and organized clique - it byzantine "check and balances" system notwithstanding. Stated differently, checks and balances effectively prevent any radical changes in policy course in most domestic policy arenas, where congress politicians have clearly defined stakes (aka pork and barrel). But those checks and balances fail when the government is attacked in the "Trojan horse" manner, through the foreign policy arena. Once that happens, and foreign policy takes the leading role, the congressional politicos all but capitulate and cry uncle.
Advice to President Obama - if you want to pass health care reform or any other radical reform, start (or escalate) a war on some distant "pissant country" (Afghanistan will do,) introduce mandatory draft and universal health care as a part of the package, and watch congressional shysters rolling over and crying uncle.
Wojtek