The War and Oil

Many of you disagree with me. Here’s one typical but eloquent email:

I don’t think that those who say that the war was "about oil," literally think that we decided to invade Iraq in order to secure supplies and lower the price of crude. No one expected that the full invasion of an oil rich country in the heart of the Arab world was going to causes prices to drop, at least not right away. So in this sense, we did not go to war in Iraq in an attempt to get cheap oil right off the bat.
But are you arguing that oil played no part in our decision to go to war? I think most people look at the regime in Iraq and have a hard time distinguishing it from others around the world. Libya, Sudan, North Korea, Syria – all dictatorships, all enemies of the United States, all suspected of WMD’s, all with potential connections to Al Qaeda – yet we pick Iraq?
If we went to war to "transform the middle east" then we went to war over oil. The only importance the Middle East ever had, and will ever have, as far as the U.S. is concerned, are its massive oil reserves. You don’t hear neocons talking about transforming Africa or intervening militarily to oust dictators in nations with no vital natural resources – but you hear endless talk about transforming the Middle East. We’re trying to bring democracy to the region because we believe democracy equals stability, and stability equals cheap and free flowing supplies of oil.

Not so fast. The dreaded neocons supported intervention in Bosnia and Somalia, and I see no oil there. Many neocons support intervening in Darfur. Ditto. Of course, some weight must be given to a region with so much leverage over the essential substance for the world economy. But before 9/11, we have no evidence that Bush was seriously planning on war against Saddam. Al Gore was more vocally anti-Saddam than Bush was, and favored more defense spending. I stick to my point. This was about national security. Oil is a part of that, but it was never the primary mover behind the Iraq war.