Colleen I also wouldn't underestimate the PNAC neocon crew in their abilities to drive foriegn policy. They've done quite a job already in putting thier plan into action post 911 without the help of oil businessmen.

dcbeltway

I think they knew Saddam was losing control of Iraq.

And the oil men decided they would take over a weak nation with large amounts of oil, rather than deal with any Iraqi government that might demand more money for access to the oil. They greatly misunderstood what Iraq was like as a nation and might have thought they could be dealing with Chalabbi as the leader of Iraq.

Bush and his business supporters don't care about Israel at all. They are using Israel and the Isralei and Jewish right wing as a cover for war in the ME to gain oil and economic power.

I can imagine many books will be written on this...but the people who really care about Israel imo are probably jewish who are alongside the people who are interested in human rights for everyone, including Palestinians.

If there is to be peace then some settlement will have to be made with the Palestinians for the lost land and Israel will not be able to do this alone. The US, the UN and the EU should all be helping to solve this very difficult problem. But Bush has no real interest in helping Israel, so there is no real peace initiative, just an encouragment for Israel to be militarily aggressive, which acts as a cover for the US to be militarily aggressive.

If Israel were in another part of the world, but still surrounded by enemies, the Bush team would have no interest in Israel at all imo. They want economic power through cheap oil and thats what has driven all of this misery...

I see encouraging local law enforcement, soliders, even FBI to do their jobs. Defend law, the Constitution, and arrest racketeers.

This is the second "let's martyr ourselves" post I've seen here. It's hinged on lowering the bar, the wedge, the front-line so low that it's guaranteed to fail. Interesting meme.

The invasion of Iraq was not for oil. Oil is fungible and would be controlled by big business whether we invaded or not. What else are they going to do with it?
The real reason, explicitly and openly stated by none other than Karl Rove, was for political power. The runup to the war was so successful for the Bush junta in the 2002 election that they decided to go ahead and have a "slam dunk" war to consolidate power in 2004. After all, war sells a stump-broke public! It worked.

Power and for the neocons and Israel. Its all to convenient they are saying the wars in Iraq and soon to be Iran are for oil. I think they are nervous given the popularity of Walt and Mersheimer's book and Jimmy Carter's book and people are starting to question the role of the lobby in all this mess. Greenspan and Kissinger are both major Zionist players too. So they are deflecting attention away from Israel and AIPAC and saying its oil. AIPAC is arguing for divestment and sanctions on Iran and their next step will be full-blown war see http://www.aipac.org/694.asp#3654

I will also add oil does have something to do with this but its not the driving factor as Shell oil already has four offices in Tehran as do other oil companies.

Surprise: Oil Woes In Iran
Flagging output from its vast reserves could diminish Tehran's influence
Businessweek

Few countries can match Iran in its ability to generate angst among Westerners. It appears determined to become a nuclear power. Tehran's Islamic leaders aid radical groups across the Middle East. And as the U.S. gets bogged down in Iraq, Iran's influence in the region is on the rise, fueled in large part by its vast energy wealth.

Yet Iran has a surprising weakness: Its oil and gas industry, the lifeblood of its economy, is showing serious signs of distress. As domestic energy consumption skyrockets, Iran is struggling to produce enough oil and gas for export. Unless Tehran overhauls its policies, its primary source of revenue and the basis of its geopolitical muscle could start to wane. Within a decade, says Saad Rahim, an analyst at Washington consultancy PFC Energy, "Iran's net crude exports could fall to zero."

That's not to say Iran doesn't have abundant resources. The country's 137 billion barrels of oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's, and its supply of gas trails only Russia's, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Getting it all out of the ground, though, is another matter. Iran has been producing just 3.9 million barrels of oil a day this year, 5% below its OPEC quota, because of delays in new projects and a shortage of technical skills. By contrast, in 1974, five years before the Islamic Revolution, Iran pumped 6.1 million barrels daily.

The situation could get even tougher for the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC), which is responsible for all of Iran's output. Without substantial upgrades in facilities, production at Iran's core fields, several of which date from the 1920s, could go into a precipitous decline. In September, Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh suggested that with no new investment, output from Iran's fields would fall by about 13% a year, roughly twice the rate that outside oil experts had expected. "NIOC is likely to find that even maintaining the status quo is a mounting challenge," says PFC Energy's Rahim.

STATE HANDOUTS
Iran's looming crisis is the result of years of neglect and underinvestment. As in other oil-producing countries such as Venezuela and Mexico, the government treats the oil industry as a cash cow, milking its revenues for social programs. It allocates only $3 billion a year for investment, less than a third of what's needed to get production growing again.

Compounding the pressure are policies that encourage profligate energy use. Gasoline prices are set at 35 cents a gallon, which has helped fuel 10%-plus annual growth in consumption, PFC Energy figures. The national thirst for gasoline far outstrips domestic refining capacity, so Iran will import about $5 billion in gasoline this year, or about 40% of its needs. The government is planning a $16 billion refinery building program to boost capacity by 60%. But unless Iran raises fuel prices, the new plants will just mean more consumption.

An oil squeeze could spell trouble for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The populist leader has won backing at home through generous handouts. Ahmadinejad has ratcheted up public spending this year by 21%, to $213 billion, on everything from aid to rural areas to housing loans for newlyweds. He has also promised some $16 billion in outlays from a special $30 billion fund set up to tide Iranians through future hard times. Without a healthy oil sector, Iran's social spending could bust the national budget--and reignite inflation.

Iran badly needs fresh foreign investment to shore up the oil industry. Tehran has attracted some $20 billion in funding for oil and gas projects since 1995 from overseas companies including Royal Dutch/Shell Group (RD ), France's Total (TOT ), and Norway's Statoil. But new investment has largely dried up in recent years because of lingering worries about the risk of war with the U.S. and disenchantment with Iran's tightfisted terms. Outsiders are offered contracts only to drill wells--rather than operate fields--and get just a small share of profits from output. For instance, Italian oil giant ENI (ENI ), a fixture in Iran since 1957, produces about 35,000 barrels per day but doesn't expect to get any bigger. "Unless international sanctions are imposed on Iran and the Italian government directs ENI to abide by them, we are committed to staying," says ENI Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni. "However, in order to increase our presence there, contractual terms for oil companies need to change."

Endless haggling and delays have set back some of Iran's biggest oil initiatives. One top priority had been the Azagedan field in southern Iran, which is expected eventually to produce 260,000 barrels a day. But in October, Tehran scrapped a $2 billion contract, agreed to in 2004, with Japan's Inpex to develop the project. And Shell's $800 million Soroush/Nowrooz project in the Persian Gulf has been plagued by cost overruns and technical glitches. In January, meanwhile, Statoil wrote down the entire $329 million book value of its South Pars project because of "productivity and quality problems" with a local contractor.

GLACIAL PACE
It's not just oil that Iran is failing to exploit. The glacial pace of negotiations is also making it fall behind neighboring Qatar in exploiting the huge offshore gas field that the two countries share. While Qatar has signed up the likes of ExxonMobil (XOM ) and Shell to develop the site, Iran's talks with Total and Shell have progressed far more slowly. Iran is now a net importer of gas, a situation not expected to reverse before 2010.

Foreign energy companies are lobbying the Iranians to change. Executives say they would like longer contracts, which would give them more control and might boost returns. But progress is slow as many Iranian officials are reluctant to give foreigners terms that might be judged too favorable. "There are indications of movement, but how far and how deep it goes is anyone's guess," an oil executive says.

Can Iran fix its energy conundrum? Some experts are betting Tehran will get its act together sooner rather than later. Iran was able to boost production from 1.2 million barrels a day during the 1980-88 war with Iraq to nearly 4 million barrels with almost no foreign help, notes Bijan Khajepour, chairman of Tehran's Atieh Bahar Consulting, which advises oil companies. He thinks Iran should be able to sustain current production for the next decade. Even so, if Tehran doesn't face up to the woes of its oil industry, Iran may find itself in the unusual position of sharing the West's angst over growing dependence on imported oil.

smitty88

Didn't you understand? Foreign governments own the oil and they make deals with the business world to sell the oil.

The US is importing oil and if the rest of the world decides not to sell oil to the US ...well its the basis for a resource war.

...............................................

Oil is sold in dollars..but no one wants US dollars. Nations like Japan and China are buying oil with dollars to dump US dollars.

In europe the cost of oil has not changed even though the cost has now gone up to US $80 / barrel..because of the currencies.

The world does not begin and end with the US. Americans are too engrossed in their own nation to understand world events.

(sorry smitty..take Greenspan's advice and have your money spred over other currencies besides the US dollar)

gee, and I thought that the fact the the first act of the new installed Afgan government was to sign the Unicol pipeline contract, and the fact that the first US-UK soldiers in Iraq headed directly to the oil field was all just a huge coincidence. duh!

dcbeltway

It could be either way, and maybe some of both of the following:

Right wing Israeli influences are determining some policies in the US through groups like AIPAC and political leaders like Lieberman

or

The business leaders who want the oil in the ME are using right wing Jews as a front (like Perlman) for the real drive behind the war in Iraq..which was to get a huge supply of cheap oil at a time when we may be entering peak oil.

Each group will begin to point fingers at one another as it becomes clear what a mess Iraq is.

The concern now imo is that there is no air attack upon Iran by either the US or Israel.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons and the hold of the present government is tenuous. It concerns me that Pakistan could use its nuclear weapons against both Israel and against US troops in Iraq.

What a mess and still the US news is not giving Americans enough facts. Instread our news is dominated by that idiot OJ Simpson.

What a disgrace. Newscasters should be ashamed.

Colleen true it could be a combination but I also wonder as it cost us $452,334,147,994 to invade Iraq so far and it seems to be it would have been cheaper to sign an oil deal with Sadaam then invade.

UNOCAL did the negoiations with the Taliban canuck before the war but did not win the pipeline deal after the war. Exxon did. http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/30/204011.shtml
Afghanistan also has alot of heroin and this might have been the reason for the invasion as the CIA profits from the drug trade along with the fact there were terrorists operating out of Afghanistan that were a very real threat and a problem.

Colleen Israel is not the weakest nation in the region it is incredibly strong with a nuclear arsenal of 200+ weapons and over 94 billion in aid from the United States over the years. Walt and Mersheimer maticulously document just how strong the Israel lobby is and cite numerous evidence in their recent book of how AIPAC drives policy in the region especially on Palestine, Lebanon, Syria (sanctions), Iraq (war), Saudi Arabia (look at the AWACS sale of the 1980's), and Iran (sanctions, divestment, and the coming war). I think AIPAC and the Likud/Kadima party pressures all of our congress and our President to carry out a foriegn policy that benefits Israel in the MENA region. Just look at Obama bending over backwards for the lobby along with Hillary and the neocon hawk lineup of Guiliani's campaign all saying they'll attack Iran. I think the oilmen certainly divided up the spoils of this war but I don't believe they were the main ones pushing it nor do they hide behind the Jewish neocons. The neocons hold a great deal of political power here in Washington and can stand on their own. AEI, MEMRI, PNAC, JINSA, and other groups make their plans obvious on their websites.

Israel is a trade liability for the US as the lobby pushing for sanctions against Iran. Dick Cheney's Halliburton wanted to do business with Iran back in the 1990's but could not because Congress passed the AIPAC lobby's sanctions bill against Iran. The US wanted to sell AWACS carriers to Saudi Arabia and AIPAC stood in the way...in the end the sale went through but barely. Israel's interests do not equal American interests in the region. The US would most likely buy the oil as we do from the Saudis and Kuwaitis from Iran and Iraq rather then spend billions in treasure to colonize these two countries. Iran and Iraq are Israel's two worst enemies in the region.

Entrenched Hypocrisy
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran
By JOSHUA FRANK

President Bush's position on Iran is "disturbing" and "dangerous", reads a recent screed written by AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Not long ago the Bush administration accepted a Russian proposal to allow Iran to continue to develop nuclear energy under Russian supervision and AIPAC is downright pissed.

In a letter to congressional allies, mostly Democrats, the pro-Israel organization admitted is was "concerned that the decision not to go to the Security Council, combined with the U.S. decision to support the 'Russian proposal,' indicates a disturbing shift in the Administration's policy on Iran and poses a danger to the U.S. and our allies."

Israel, however, continues to develop a substantial nuclear arsenal, and in 2000 the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) reported that Israel has most likely produced enough plutonium to make up to 200 nuclear weapons. So, it is safe to say that Israel's bomb building techniques are light years ahead of Iran's dismal nuclear program. Yet the major U.S. ally in the Middle East still won't admit they have capacity to produce such deadly weapons.

And while AIPAC and Israel pressure the U.S. government to force the Iran issue to the U.N. Security Council, Israel itself stands in violation of numerous U.N. Resolutions dealing with the occupied territories of Palestine, including U.N. Resolution 1402, which demands that Israel withdraw its military from all Palestinian cities at once.

AIPAC's hypocrisy is stomach-turning, to say the least. The goliath lobbying organization wants Iran to be slapped across the knuckles while the crimes of Israel continue to be ignored. And who is propping up AIPAC's hypocritical position? Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.

As the top Democratic recipient of pro-Israel funds for the 2006 election cycle thus far, pocketing over $58,000 as of October 31 last year, Senator Clinton now has Iran in her cross-hairs.

During a Hanukkah dinner speech delivered on December 11, hosted by Yeshiva University, Clinton prattled, "I held a series of meetings with Israeli officials [last summer], including the prime minister and the foreign minister and the head of the [Israeli Defense Force] to discuss such challenges we confront. In each of these meetings, we talked at length about the dire threat posed by the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran, not only to Israel, but also to Europe and Russia. Just this week, the new president of Iran made further outrageous comments that attacked Israel's right to exist that are simply beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptability. During my meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, I was reminded vividly of the threats that Israel faces every hour of every day ... It became even more clear how important it is for the United States to stand with Israel ..."

As Sen. Clinton embraces Israel's violence, as well as AIPAC's duplicitous Iran position, she simultaneously ignores the hostilities inflicted upon Palestine, as numerous Palestinians have been killed during the recent shelling of the Gaza Strip. Over the past weeks Israel continues to mark the occupied territories (they call 'buffer zones') like a frothing-mouth K9 on the loose.

Hillary Clinton's silence toward Israel's brutality implies the senator will continue to support AIPAC's mission to occupy the whole of the occupied territories, as well as a war on Iran in the future. AIPAC's right -- even President Bush appears to be a little sheepish when up against Hillary "warmonger" Clinton.

Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, which has just been published by Common Courage Press. You can order a copy at a discounted rate at www.brickburner.org. Joshua can be reached at Joshua@brickburner.org.

dc

The problem is not that Jewish groups are influencing US policy.

The problem is that these influential jewish groups like AIPAC, are right wing and have bad solutions to the problems. Organizations like AIPAC are making the situation worse.

Imo the best solution for Israel is negotiations and a lowering of the level of violence. Jews who agree and do not support the right wing militaristic solutions must stand up to AIPAC and fund politicians who will work to solve the Palestinian problem with the least amount of violence.

In a nuclear war Israel does not stand a chance. It is the size of NJ.

It is lunacy to think that Israel can win using a military solution.

Pakistan already has nuclear weapons and other ME nations will eventually have them too. It can be slowed down but not stopped imo. There MUST be political solutions found.

I do not trust what politicans say in public. Most of it is posturing to gain money and votes.

Incidentally Hillary was wearing an orange shirt, a symbol in support of impeachement, and I wondered if she knew that...

People also forget Larry Franklin and the AIPAC spy scandel. Larry Franklin was a Pentagon employee who passed on Top Secret documents about Iran to AIPAC employees and members of the Israeli Embassy.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1114/

Imagine the nerve of Iran seeking national security by being influencial with its neighbors.

Imagine the gall of Iran that it would show any fear after watching its neighbor illegally attacked and plundered by a far away imperialist power.

By Kissinger's reasoning, if China were to attack and occupy Mexico or Canada, we should be bombed to Hell by China and the international community if we were to attempt to influence events or curtail China's ambitions in any way.

The whole thing is a ridiculous farce enabled by the horrendous state of our educational system. If our citizens could think critically at a high level, the Republican Party would cease to exist. In fact, both parties would need to change radically or become irrelevant.

Then, there would be a whole different set of "truisms."

If at the begining of Bush's term they would have made the right move instead they chose to make oil more available through a variety of means rather then to develop alternative sources of energy. Oil may very well be our downfall!! What a different world this place might be,if our leaders WOULD JUST DO THE RIGHT THING and start developing electric and other forms of energy driven cars instead of a dwindling and dirty resource like crude oil but, alas, the old God of GREED is still at the wheel.

I have been pushing this idea in hopes that it will traction. As an american it sems that concerned individuals seem to have little effect in bringing about change. Many individuals of character (Cindy Sheehan/Nader) and many groups (ACLU/Anti-War movement) can not penetrate the blanket of dollars that corporations use to suppress meaningful change and more importantly even let fellow american understand how many americans do NOT approve of the direction, ethics and policy of this once great nation.
I suggest that a a coalition of ALL groups (Immigration/Anti-War/Anti-globalization Healthcare/Free Speech/Free Press- and just concerned Americans in general) combine and simultaneously withdraw an average of 10,000 dollars oout of the banking/brokerage section of this country for sa one week. If a combined group of 10,000,000 people withdrew an average of $10,000 dollars - we would effectively have removed 100 billion in cash - but due to fractional reserve banking as much as 10 TRILLION dollars out of the economy.

OUR MONEY - they use to finance deadbeat corporations (such as Enron and worldcomm amongst many other corupt anti-american people corporations) -not to mention the governement who would rather show 50 people protesting in Burma a dozen times in a day - but not the 100,000 in Washington DC on September 15th or the one million in NYC during the Republican National Convention - as well as countless other examples. They are using OUR MONEY as collateral to do harm to US.

If -it is possible to combine our goals into one goal - which is to let these corporations/governmets KNOW that we KNOW - they are sing OUR MONEY to finance a WAR against US - and we will move it to Switzerland or some other country - just like they outsource oor jobs - we could single handly achieve the greatest worldwide non-violent most effective protest in the history on mankind.

We already know - that Mexico's biggest foreing exchange generator is immigrants sending money back home - more than oil!! - Imagine the message we would be able to send to all oppressed people everywhere - if we could successfully withdraw upto 10 trillion dollars in funds from the worlds largest economy !! All of a sudden the contempt from our congressman, senators, police, banks, corporations and brokerage houses would shrivel to the size of a raisun in the sun.

What do you guys think!1 I see no other way for americans to restore their voice in thie governance of our country - with out getting arreted/fired/balcklisted ad nauseum!!!!!

For a war that had "nothing" to do with oil, they sure spent a lot of time talking about oil!

Kissinger is a war criminal wanted around the world to be tried in courts of law for war crimes/crimes against humanity and Greenspan has succesful managed to orchestrate the coming crash of our economy with the housing crisis and other economic bubbles thanks to his tenure at the corrupt Federal Reserve. Intelligent people should question what they say...they have horrible track records...war for oil seems a plant to cover up other intentions/purposes such as raw imperialism.

Best bunch of lying turkeys I have ever seen. Anybody got a good dependable twelve-gauge loaded with bird shot?

Kernel....Dick Cheney LOL although apparently that gun's aim is not very good!

STARTING NOW
THERE IS IN EFFECT
THE WORLD-WIDE
*** BOYCOTT-TO-BANKRUPTCY ***
OF
EXXON/MOBILE CORPORATION

THE BOYCOTT WILL END WHEN THE U.N. CERTIFIES THAT IRAQ IS A SOVEREIGN NATION AND THAT HOSTILITIES HAVE CEASED.

WHY EXXON? BECAUSE AT THE CORE OF THIS MESS ARE THE CORPORATION AND OIL. THERE ARE OTHERS AS WELL, BUT WE MUST FOCUS ON JUST ONE. BECAUSE IT IS SOMETHING WE CAN DO. BECAUSE IT IS LEGAL, NON-VIOLENT AND WILL SEND A MESSAGE FROM THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD THAT WE WILL HAVE OUR PLANET BACK!!

BUY NO PRODUCT.
SELL THE STOCK IF YOU HAVE IT.
DEAL WITH COMPANIES WHICH DO NOT USE THEIR PRODUCTS.
PETITION YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO USE OTHER BRANDS.
BE COURTEOUS TO THE EMPLOYEES AND HELP DISPLACED WORKERS FIND EMPLOYMENT ELSEWHERE.

NOW AND FOR AS LONG AS IT TAKES.
THE PEOPLE OF THIS WORLD ARE ONE!
IF WE ACT AS ONE—WE ARE AS ONE!!
TELL 11 TO TELL 11 TO TELL 11.

PEACE

Greenspan and Kissinger both have written their most self-servicing books to hide the lies and failures of their lives. For us it is not easy to avoid the scams, but we can try. For historians it is a lesson in knowing where to look to find the bodies

The bottom line physical reality is energy - oil. Without it, our society goes down the tubes. The Israelies use the US. The US uses Israel. There are always multiple factors, multiple actors at work and the situation is complex and almost unknowable due to state secrecy. But, the physics of energy can not be changed as far as I know. We will reach peak oil production sometime in this century and this will have a big effect upon our lives.

twistoflex September 18th, 2007 4:38 am

"The bottom line physical reality is energy - oil. Without it, our society goes down the tubes."

It doesn't have to be that way but it probably will be. We could convert to hydrogen and renewable energy sources within ten years, twenty at most, if we really pushed it.

Lobo Gris

I see the 'oil is fungible' argument has made a return at the top of this comments section. This argument had quite a good run but seemed to disappear when a Chinese state-controlled oil company tried to buy Unocal.

From the Washington Post (1): "[House and senate members expressed] fear that China is aggressively seeking to corner a strategic asset, oil, and create its own captive supply … Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told Snow … I don't think being a free trader is synonymous with being a sucker and a patsy."

We likewise didn't hear much about fungible oil here in the UK after the MSM started shrieking about how Russia was using its energy resources as "a new policy instrument to reassert Russian power". Erwin Stelzer, commenting in The (London) Times (2): "Germany already gets 35% of its oil … from Russia" and in calling Putin a democrat "the German chancellor was indicating he was not prepared to bite the hand that controlled the valves of the pipelines that warmed his country".

I assume the 'oil is fungible' argument disappeared because no-one felt they could explain why former Iraqi controlled oil was fungible while Russian and potentially Chinese controlled oil was not.

(1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062302065.html
(2) http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article508126.ece

Tell us something we don't know. Why didn't these cowards come out years ago? Sounds to me they are just trying to cover their asses. Let these blowhards go to Iraq and tell this to the soldiers who are loosing their lives. Or better yet, go to the deep south and to the poor neighborhoods and tell this to the young men and women who are looking for a way out of poverty and decide to join the military. In fact, who cares what these jokers think or say.