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Iraq: It All Boils Down to Oil
U.S. won’t leave Iraq’s energy reserves untended after its troops pull out
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama restated his vow to pull all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this month, and the remaining U.S. garrison by the end of 2011.
Has America's long goodbye to Iraq really begun?
The 50,000 U.S. troops left until 2011 will supposedly "advise and assist" and perform "anti-terrorism" missions and training.
These troops will likely be six armor-heavy combat brigades, backed by warplanes from U.S. air bases in the Gulf.
A U.S. brigade withdrawn from Iraq will go to neighboring Kuwait. Most of the rest will transfer to Afghanistan.
No word about the 85,000 U.S.-paid mercenaries (a.k.a. "contractors") in Iraq.
In his impressive new book, Oil, writer Tom Bower notes America's trinity is "God, guns and gasoline."
Iraq's oil reserves are an estimated 112 billion barrels, the world's second largest behind Saudi Arabia. Canada ranks third.
Iraq also has vast natural gas reserves, an increasingly important fuel and raw material. Oil-hungry India and China are eyeing Iraq.
America's once mighty oil firms, the "seven sisters," have been elbowed out of most of the world's oil fields by nationalist governments.
Iraq's ex-ruler, Saddam Hussein, kicked foreign oil firms out of Iraq, and so sealed his fate. Big Oil moved back into Iraq behind invading U.S. troops in 2003, and is taking over Iraq's oil production and exporting.
It's unlikely the U.S. will cut Iraq loose.
Washington seems to be following the same control model set up in the 1920s by the British Empire to secure Mesopotamia's oil. Namely: Install a puppet ruler, create a native army to protect him, leave some British troops and strong RAF units in desert bases ready to bomb any miscreants who disturbed the Pax Brittanica - and keep cheap oil flowing.
Washington is building a $740 million US new embassy in Baghdad for 800 personnel, as well as giant new fortified embassies in the Afghan capital Kabul and Islamabad, Pakistan, (cost $1 billion) that may hold 1,000 "diplomats."
Osama bin Laden calls them, "Crusader Fortresses."
The U.S. hopes the Shia Maliki regime it installed in Baghdad will keep a lid on Iraq while allowing almost-independent Kurdistan to remain a Kuwait-like U.S. protectorate. But given Iraq's fractured history, this seems unlikely.
American "liberation" left Iraq politically, economically, and socially shattered. Republican crowing about victory in Iraq thanks to the famous "surge" hides the grim truth.
Reputable studies estimate Iraq's death toll at hundreds of thousands to one million, not counting claims by UN observers that 500,000 Iraqi children died from disease as a result of the U.S.-led embargo before 2003.
Four million Sunni Iraqis remain refugees, half abroad, victims of Shia ethnic cleansing. Death squads haunt the land. Large numbers of Iraqi doctors and scientists have been murdered.
A maze of U.S.-built concrete walls cut up and control major cities. Electricity only works a few hours daily in 40 C heat.
Cancers from depleted uranium fired by U.S. cannons are becoming epidemic.
"They create a desert, and call it peace," as Tacitus memorably said of Rome's solution for Carthage.
If all U.S. troops are removed, the Maliki sock puppet regime won't last long.
A real Iraqi regime nationalist would re-nationalize oil, rearm, rebuild the ruined nation and rejoin the Arab confrontation against Israel.
Or, Iran would end up dominating Iraq.
It's unlikely Washington would accept either outcome.
Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation has abated as the pullout date nears.
U.S. casualties have fallen sharply because U.S. troops are being kept on their bases.
But this could quickly change.
The highest-ranking surviving Ba'ath Party leader, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, just declared a new push against the occupiers and their Shia allies.
The outlook for Iraq is probably more violence and turmoil.
U.S. troops may have to remain to protect America's oil companies and prevent Iraq from disintegrating.
The excuse, of course, will be "fighting terrorism," but the real reason, as in Afghanistan, will be oil which - of course - is next to God.
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55 Comments so far
Show AllThis is news?
Fairly obvious even in 2002, before Iraq was invaded:
More generally, the September 11 terrorist atrocities provided an opportunity and pretext to implement long-standing plans to take control of Iraq's immense oil wealth, a central component of the Persian Gulf resources that the State Department, in 1945, described as "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history" (referring specifically to Saudi Arabia, but the intent is more general). US intelligence predicts that these will be of even greater significance in the years ahead. The issue has never been access. The same intelligence analyses anticipate that the US will rely on more secure Atlantic Basin supplies. The same was true after World War II. The US moved quickly to gain control over Gulf resources, but not for its own use; North America was the major producer for decades afterwards, and since then Venezuela has generally been the leading exporter to the US. What matters is control over the "material prize," which funnels enormous wealth to the US in many ways, and the "stupendous source of strategic power," which translates into a lever of “unilateral world domination.”
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20021203.htm
"More generally, the September 11 terrorist atrocities provided an opportunity and pretext to implement long-standing plans to take control of Iraq's immense oil wealth..."
When an economic crime happens, one question the police ask in seeking the perpetrator is "who benefits?"
Who benefits from the attack on the world trade center on September 11, 2001? Answer this question, then you have you criminals.
Cui Bono? 911 is right in there with the Maine,Pearl Harbor,The Gulf of Tonkin and Osama Bin Laden. Nothing has changed in the last 100 years.
don't forget Polk's claim that "US blood was spilt on US soil" - the lie which started the war against Mexico.
Without blood for oil, Dracula dies.
Thanks for the ten year old news flash.
Divest, Boycott, and Sanction the US and Israel, the most powerful terrorist states of the world today!
"This is news?"..."Thanks for the 10 year old news flash"...
...there's the individual consciousness(which can be abstracted into at least three) and mass consciousness(a compilation of how many?); this article may be non or old news for some, but as an argument for molding mass consciousness, I think this piece is very well done: concise and to the point, very useful for framing the argument in these WikiLeak days....
The global demand for oil has been rising despite the warning signs in the 1970s. We all use oil for so many things that our life styles would have to be completely different to reduce global demand for oil. I could get rid of my SUV but that wouldn't change anything. But I could call for getting people to consider turning to repairmen instead of buying a new appliance. I win customers like that and that helps reduce the demand for oil. We could make our existing vehicles fuel efficient by demanding the cars and trucks we had in the 1970s that got 40 miles to the gallon. If you want to reduce the demand for oil, you goto do it.
Some kind of record for contradicting yourself in one post.
SUVs aren't necessarily the biggest guzzlers. They good for winter too.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/motoring/blazing--a-trail-1279673.html
http://www.electricmail.co.za/template_level2.asp?parentseq=16580
We all contradict ourselves. How much oil went into making that computer you're typing on? How much mileage does your car have? Do you drive it alone or with someone?
If Bush/Cheney hadn't gotten us into Iraq, the military wouldn't have been the biggest oil guzzler and nobody would be complaining about SUVs.
Forget about cars. Nearly everything made of plastic ultimately came from a barrel of petroleum. Eliminating our dependence on oil means going back to using metal and wood. Then we would hear that we are using up the forests (which absorb CO2 from the atmosphere) and running out of iron ore.
The real problem is that there are too many people. Stop having kids.
Thanks for supporting an argument that I have often made on this website. Actually approximately one-third of a barrel of oil goes into the production of plastics. In addition some smaller fraction goes into making pharmaceuticals. I have been bombarded by anti-oilers with numerous ridiculous schemes for making plastics including the use of banana peels.
And yes, there may be already too many people on the Earth and not more wars that kill millions such as WW2.
I do a lot of repairing on plastics while most people discard and buy replacements. I know plastics come from oil but from what source did you get the 1/3 figure from?
I asked Google.
The google excuse is just stupid. Claiming that there are articles that support your position is way different from simply pointing out that the articles that support your claim. It's notable that you don't link to them. You need to point out exactly which site you got that number from.
Actually, Iraq does not have the world's second largest oil reserves as the article states. Saudi Arabia is first. Canada is second. Iran is third. Iraq is fourth. But...Canada is only second if all of those tar sands are counted. If the tar sands are not counted then Iran comes in easily at second place. And guess what. Iran is a threat to world peace and must be attacked soon. Nothing to do with oil of course. And also, Iran treats women badly so they need to be liberated!
My order from past research is: 1) Saudi Arabia, 2) Iraq (for pure oil) then 3) Iran, which jumps two #2 if you consider total energy reserves in that Iran is also #2 in natural gas behind Russia, then you start getting to Venezuela, Canada, Russia, etc.
Chomsky in a video posted on CD informs us that US Oil Companies have had mediocre success in getting Iraqi oil, so let's put that lie to rest.
Our access to oil is now more insecure than ever before because of our interventions.
It's Zionism that impales us in the Middle East, much to the detriment of everybody except for them.
De-Countrify Israel Now!
It isn't a lie. The US was first involved in the Middle East (overthrowing Iran's democratically elected government) because of oil. If Israel didn't exist the US would still be involved in the Middle East.
Th US only entered WWI so they could share in the spoils of the defeated Ottomans: the oil fields of Mesopotamia.
Quote: "The US only entered WWI so they could share in the spoils of the defeated Ottomans: the oil fields of Mesopotamia". I think that you are completely wrong. The planned division of the Ottoman empire began in the middle of WW1 with the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 which allocated Ottoman territories, incuding the oil at Mosul, to the UK, France and Russia only. Even though our country was appraised of the agreement it did not demand to be included in their proposed land grabs primarily in the Levant (Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria), Mesopotamia and Turkey. The song-and-dances at the Paris "Peace Conference" of 1919 were so complex, especially the hassles over Syria and Palestine, and of such long duration that it is impossible to give the details here. Let me quote one assertion from the book "Paris 1919" by Margaret Macmillan in the chapter on Arab Independence: "For the Arab Middle East, the peace settlements were the old nineteenth-century imperialism again. Britain and France got away with it-temporarily-because the United States did not choose to involve itself and because Arab nationalism was not yet strong enough to challenge them". My own investigation of the role of our country at that conference fully confirms Macmillan's assertion. In addition I found that the U.S. oil companies and independent operators were drilling like mad at that time in the Continental United States driven by the hugely inflated demand for the "black gold" during the war and the blithe assumption that the U.S. reserves were near infinite. Why drill in Mesopotamia when the stuff is right here under youwse feet in Texas, California, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania"? U. S. interest in the Middle East oil fields awakened much later with the discovery of the elephantine super-fields on the Arab peninsula. Eventually that resulted in the founding of ARAMCO.
My assertion is taken from p.525 of the 1928 book History of American Political Thought by R.G. Gettell, professor of political science, UC Berkeley.
Thank you, however, for the Sykes-Picot information, the time of which strengthens my take.
If you can mention one meeting of the "big three" of Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George, who controlled all outcomes of the Paris Peace Conference, during which President Wilson demanded that America be given immediate access to Middle Eastern oil or any mention of US demands for access to oil in any of the protocols I will rest my case. In the meantime I continue to aver that you and Professor Gettell have not shown me one shred of evidence for your historic hypothesis. Ergo I continue to aver that you are wrong.
Your assertion that Sykes-Picot strengthens your take demonstrates that you make an unproven statement here to strengthen your case with historic events which are showing exactly the opposite. I am flabbergasted.
Sykes-Picot happened in the year before our country entered WW1. The agreement partitioned the Ottoman empire between the UK and France only. The US was not mentioned. The British government made the agreement known to Wilson's administration which did not protest for having been "left out". A ruse by Wilson to fool the UK and France? If you think so, prove it with known documents.
Total nonsense. If it was for oil, then the US oil companies would be getting oil. Not to mention that it is clear that our access to oil is more threatened by the invasion than ever before. This is so bleeding obvious that it astounds me that anyone pushes it. I guess that Zionists have taken to heart the adage that if you say a lie often enough, people will believe it. And there is no lie or distortion, however transparent, that is below a Zionist saying it.
De-Countrify Israel Now.
You don't have to include Israel in everything that's wrong. You sound like that Jill Baines wacko who'd call for eliminating Israel.
Non-response. Guess my point stands - it's not about oil. Just bullying - which is what you Zionists do.
De-Countrify Israel Now.
Your "De-Countrify Israel Now" schtick is starting to sound like spam. I know you hate Israel but Israel isn't the problem. The problem is who runs it. Not hating Israel doesn't necessarily translate into being a zionist.
Non-response again.
De-Countrify Israel NOW.
Man, you a robot !
No, I am a human being that cares about the suffering of other human beings. I think you must be projecting. Zionists don't seem to have that capacity (except for themselves).
De-Countrify Israel Now.
Trade routes have always been @ the center of the fight for control in this region. OIL has more recently ( last 90 yrs.) replaced this more traditional reason for the struggle over this area. Israel's location in proximity to all of this is a thorn in the side of the Arabs / Muslims, but even if Israel didn't exist we'd still be involved in this region strategically.
Posters: please leave Israel and Zionism out of the oil debate proper because that is a non-starter. Oil in the Middle East both with regards to ownership and production is controlled by OPEC nations and to a lesser extent by the OPEC organization itself but not by Israel, the Zionists, or any Western Nation. If you had been old enough in the 1980's, which I now doubt, you would remember the power of OPEC and its famous Sheik Yamani. The current OPEC members are: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi-Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Gabon left in 1994 and Indonesia left in 2008 because it had become an oil importer. Should any overt or covert U. S. oil grab happen in Iraq these nations will stand with their OPEC member. Whereas the Obama administration may not care what the OPEC member Venezuela has to say it will not risk to anger Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi-Arabia, and the United Arab Emirate on Iraq's oil. These countries are hugely nationalistic and remember their struggles-and that struggle included Iran (Mossadegh!)- to take away the ownership of their oil from the foreign oil companies. OPEC seems to be less powerful and unified now than it was in the 1980's but make no mistake, jointly these countries still have the power to stop you from driving your car for pleasure if our government truly believes that it can "control" oil production, availability, and prices by military means, that is to say by invading and permanently occupying Middle Eastern countries.
Except for some pipelines the trading lanes for oil from the Middle East and Africa are sea lanes principally to Europe, China, and Japan. Now that Basra has essentially reverted to Iraq the non-OPEC countries no longer control any of the oil-exporting ports in the Middle East hence are essentially impotent when it comes to "trading and moving oil". Most of our oil comes from Canada and Venezuela. That oil obviously does not pass through the trading lanes of the Middle East. The history of oil is fascinating and multi-faceted. Our country "controlled" oil only from the end of WW2 until 1960 when OPEC was founded in....Baghdad!
I disagree. Israel and Zionism is central to the debate about the War in Iraq, because 911 is central to the debate about the War in Iraq, and because Israel and Zionism were central to 911.
Even with its bogus claims about WMDs, the US could never have attacked Iraq without 911.
WRONG! Chomsky noted that US Oil companies have had poor results in accessing Iranian oil, which puts lie of 'it's for oil' in broad daylight.
These wars have made access to oil MORE problematic.
It's about Zionism.
De-Countrify Israel Now.
What puzzles me is this: why is it that not thousands of new wells were drilled in Iraq by U. S. oil companies under the protection of the U. S. Armed Forces like the British did in the Middle East in the past? If the answer is that Iraq was not safe enough, what is the evidence that Iraq will be "safe enough" in the future for foreign oil exploration? (The fact that such drilling could have been a violation of the Geneva Conventions of Warfare and occupation could have hardly bothered Bush/Cheney. Note: the occupying forces are authorized to use the natural resources of the occupied country but only to the extent of their own daily needs of occupation, not for home consumption). The original intent for going into Iraq may have had a huge "oil aspect". Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is risky but is not in danger because of possible uprisings by Louisianans. If you were on the board of EXXON would you not have preferred the Gulf over Iraq? Given what has happened since I doubt that "oil" plays a significant role in the current administration's Iraq policy. In my opinion that administration's policy is anchored on the quicksand of hope that there will not be either a military coup or some other big insurrection which establishes a new dictatorship while Mr. Obama is in the White House. Such a development would be interpreted to mean that every U. S. Soldier killed or maimed in Iraq was killed or maimed in vain. I may be wrong but I read the "tea leaves" from Washington to mean that Iraq is a greatly negative entry in the ledgers of the power struggle in the Middle East and that the administration will hew to SOFA-Iraq with only one potentially nasty struggle still to come namely how many "security personnel" for our diplomats the Iraqi's will accept.
"why is it that not thousands of new wells were drilled in Iraq by U. S. oil companies" Oil in the ground is oil in the bank. You don't need to pump it out to find a market for it, in a time of Peak Oil that market will come begging to you. Similarly, for 'window-dressing' reasons the U.S. might prefer the Iraqi's appear to be running the oil-show.
"I doubt that "oil" plays a significant role in the current administration's Iraq policy." I think it does, but it is not Iraqi oil, primarily. Due to Islam, American's can't put military bases in Saudi Arabia. This is the next best thing. I think the administration is hatching a policy that could allow Iraq to fall but still allow the U.S. military bases to remain. Those bases are the whole point of the invasion. Through those bases, the U.S. controls (not directly but by threat), all the oil in the Middle East.
As others have stated, the connection to Israel may also play a role here, specifically the surrounding of Iran by U.S. bases. Iranian oil is also at play here. So I really think it is about oil, and Israel.
I don't think oil can be discounted any longer as a military justification. The Georgians wanted their country back, and backed by the U.S., made noise to take it back, including the area where Russian and Central Asian oil flowed into the Mediterranean. Russia responded by invading. Oil is important.
Quote: "Oil in the ground is oil in the bank". Correct but the "oil in the ground" is the property of the OPEC country in which it occurs recognized by international agreements. Yes, the "seven sisters" may lick their chops all the way to the banks because the Iraq oil remains mostly "in the ground" but they and their sponsor-countries have been shown in and by Iraq to be helpless if not powerless to create a stable government which is the first requirement for safe exploration in any country. You may not agree with me but even if the Obama administration does not get it, the "seven sisters" have long ago got it and refrain from bullying any OPEC country during the sometimes subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ballets waged to get the oil out of the ground and onto the market. On several occasions the "seven sisters" had to eat crow and accept a smaller cut from the profits for themselves.
If Iraq was all about oil on the day of the Bush invasion of that country, then that "all about oil" became a gigantic fiasco. Why Mr. Margolis seems to believe that it is still "all about oil" which implies that the fiasco created by military invasion can be made undone escapes even my limited understanding of Iraq and oil.
The devastating irony is that Bush and the "seven sisters" could have obtained, after much haggling of course, an agreement with Saddam Hussein for the exploration and marketing of his oil. The two sides would constantly have had one another "by the balls". Hussein could have reneged on the contracts and the "seven sisters" could have reneged on shipping the oil out of Iraq or of Lebanon at the end of a pipeline but that is the common risk of contracts with any country, democratic or dictatorial. If Bush had wanted to "get his hands on oil from Iraq" he should have installed a new but more obedient dictator in Iraq instead of experimenting with "democracy". Even then the outcome would have been greatly uncertain.
Our country is and will remain for a long time, perhaps forever an OIC (Oil Importing Country) and the home base of several of the "seven sisters" hence cannot afford attacking, insulting, and killing the citizens of any OPEC country.
Recently it has become known that BP asked the UK government to press the Scottish court to release the Libyan plane bomber. I will not be surprised to learn that some if not all of the "seven sisters" pleaded with President Bush and now with President Obama to end the occupation of Iraq, not to attack Iran, and stop Israel from attacking Iran. None of this would make them sympathetic in my eyes. I try to understand the self-interests of these companies. What I think of their morals is irrelevant for that understanding, nay it gets in the way of understanding.
"I don't think oil can be discounted any longer as a military justification. The Georgians wanted their country back, and backed by the U.S., made noise to take it back, including the area where Russian and Central Asian oil flowed into the Mediterranean. Russia responded by invading. Oil is important."
Even the EU, which is pro-Georgian, agreed reluctantly that the Georgians started military hostilities.
The Central Asian oil arrives in Azerbaijan at the Sangchai Terminal. That oil combined with the Baku oil of Azerbaijan can enter one of four existing pipelines: 1. Sangchai-Novorossiysk: directly from Azerbaijan to Russia. 2. Sangchai to Supsa: Past Tbilisi to Supsa. Not one section of that pipeline is in South Ossetia or in Abkhazia. 3. Sangchai to Ezurum in Turkey: Past Tbilisi. Not one section of that pipeline is in South Ossetia or in Abkhazia. 4.Sangchai to Ceyhan: Past Tbilisi to Turkey. Not one section of that pipeline is in South Ossetia or in Abkhazia. Only pipelines 1 and 2 lead to the Mediterranean. There is a plan for pipeline 3 to be extended as the Nabucco Pipeline to Central Europe. Is my information wrong and is there today a pipeline trough Georgia that runs trough the Russian assisted breakaways of Abkhazia and South Ossetia? Also "Russian oil" never gets into Georgia proper to the best of my information.
The author writes…"Osama bin Laden calls them, "Crusader Fortresses.""
You mean, the fake Osama who gets scripted each time the CIA decides to release a new audio tape on that one website that all of Al Qaeda's supposed announcements are published.
But somehow, the CIA, and NSA, or the host of other intelligence agencies just can't seem to trace the whereabouts of those uploading the goods.
And most Americans just nod their heads yup, yup, we got us a problem with them thar terrier-ists.
I don't see the problem. I think Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden exist. They were funded by the CIA for the longest time. To dismiss them as a fabrication is to ignore a large part of US foreign policy in the region.
It is my opinion that many commentators are mistaken on Israel's principal aims and policies. The overwhelming aim of Israel's "hawks" who are on the ascendancy and possibly their only one at this time is to establish a Jewish state in all of the former Mandate of Palestine with the hope that the Palestinians will eventually give up and resettle elsewhere or have them removed forcibly if necessary (to avoid any misunderstanding, I emphatically have oppose such aims since 1945 when I was asked by a member of the "Jewish Brigade" of the British Army to go to "Palestine" to kick the Arabs out). All other policies are made subordinate to this aim. It is my opinion also that such a state will be not only threatened from the outside but also continuously from the inside because Israel treats Palestinians as second-class citizens. Nevertheless, this aim will fail for reasons similar to those why the Confederate States of America failed: internal and external enemies which are ultimately too strong to prevent the collapse of an "Apartheid State" which Israel is and a "Slavery State" which the CSA was.
The formation of a modern state based on permanent chattel slavery was a huge anomaly at a time when slavery was dying, albeit slowly, in the Western Hemisphere and was despised in Western Europe especially by the socialist labor parties and movements. It has not often been pointed out that the formation of the Western-Oriented state of Israel in 1947/48 based on halacic Jewness was, let's face it, a gigantic tour-de-force coming as it did almost immediately after the military and moral defeat of a state that demanded proof of your pure Aryan descend to be accepted as one of its citizens!
I know that there is only a minute group of Israelis that want to control not only Jordan but also Iraq in addition to the "old Palestine" to have direct access to oil. The big boys like Netanyahu know that this is dangerous nonsense. He knows that Israel will never get a drop of Middle Eastern oil directly. As long as our country vouchsafes Israel's need for crude oil and its products it is in Israel's interest in collaboration with us to weaken the oil "sword" of its opponents thereby weakening their military ability to attack from the outside.
Finally there are interesting parallels of the attempts by the CSA to make Great Britain more sympathetic or even support the CSA and Israel's unceasing attempts to promote its sympathy in our country. In the quiver of attempts we find horror stories committed by Negroes vs. horror stories committed by Hamas. We find the weak attempts by the CSA to free Negro males who volunteered to serve in its Army but emancipation only after the service was completed. Likewise the Netanyahu's of Israel give weak promises of ending the stealing of land from Palestinian Arabs only to disavow such promises a few days or weeks later.
How do I propose to end this abomination? Emancipate the Palestinian Arabs and the rotten structure that is the Israel of today will collapse!
Let us not forget that the strongest pressure for invading Iraq, alongside the Cheney-Bush oil/MIC contingent, came from the Neocon/Zionist faction, and that a dismantling of Iraq was posited as "desirable" as early as the mid 1990s in the strategic Israeli study called "A Clean Break: a Strategy for Securing the Realm," penned by many of those same dual-national Neocons for the Netanyahu government of the time. Besides, ur-Neocon (and 9/11 Commission coverup artist) Philip Zelikow himself open stated that the war on Iraq was "about Israel". Somehow these important details seem so often to be left out of articles like this one.
The fact remains the US first got involved in the region because of oil and will likely remain there because of it.
Willfully ignoring AIPAC, of course. And it's pretty impressive to willfully ignore an elephant in the room that big.
De-Countrify Israel Now.
The war still happens without AIPCA. Or Jews.
Tthe idea that THESE wars would happen without "AIPCA. Or Jews." (your words)
reveals a psychopathic inability to see reality.
And I suppose "AIPCA. Or Jews." are not promoting war with Iran, too.
There is no lie or distortion so transparent that Zionists won't push it - over and over.
De-Countrify Israel Now.
You may kick all the Jews out of America but that still won't solve the problem of US imperialism in the Middle East.
Not disregarding AIPAC as a pro-war lobby group but there have been pro-war hawks in Washington for well over a century now. I blame many factors just not one single ethnicity.