> What's the wisdom on this, with hindsight now? If the war for oil logic is
> rejected, what WAS or IS the current explanation for why the u.s. waged the
> wars? Was there one?
Don't look to me for wisdom. I think Doug theorized at one point that the Bushies had sort of rogue elements who hijacked foreign policy for their own little aims, which, extrapolating, was made possible by extraordinary political circumstances. Sounds as plausible as other explanations, I guess.
Discussions over reasons for war drive me mad sometimes. I think liberals and Marxists tend to seek out only economic reasons for them, which arises I think because they see the state as (at least potentially) neutral, a system that's been controlled by capital and so must be used for capital's purposes. There's a tendency not to see the state as having its own needs and dynamics, but only a thing used by capital. I think to make any sense of the why, you first have to separate the two "systems."