When discussing the Iraq war someone inevitably makes the loony claim that America went to war to war to steal Iraq’s oil. There is usually not much more behind this accusation then Iraq has a lot of oil so obviously President Bush being an old oil man must be out to steal it. But those people are still not quite as out there as those who claim the moon landing was a fake or the CIA blew up the Twin Towers, since the oil buried beneath and around the Persian Gulf is central to the conflict, it is just not as simple as someone trying to get his hands on someone else’s oil.
Even if it started out that way in 1990, the year we have to start in order to understand the US-Iraq conflict. Back then Saddam wanted to build himself an Arabian empire starting with his invasion of tiny oil rich Kuwait. Weak, nearly undefended and sitting on immense oil resources Saudi Arabia along with its Gulf neighbors feared they would be next. So they invited in American troops to defend them in what is known as operation Desert Shield. This huge sacrilege of infidels on holy Muslim ground was what would kick off Bin Laden’s anti-western crusade, but that’s another story. Dessert Shield soon turned in to Dessert Storm as America went on to liberate Kuwait. This solved the most imminent problem of how to respond to Saddam’s invasion but not the bigger problem of the threat a powerful Iraq run by a seemingly mad dictator posed to the oil resources on which the free world’s economies depended. Here the Bush senior and junior differed in their opinions. The father wanted to leave Saddam in power with restrictions on what kind of weapons he could possess while the son thought it better to march on Bagdad. Since the father was the president that was obviously the course taken but the views of the son are equally important given later developments.
These weapon restrictions mainly involved so called WMD such as chemical and nuclear weapons, the former Saddam had used in his genocidal campaign against the Kurds and the second he was known to be developing (at least until the Israelis bombed the reactor ten years earlier). But restrictions were also placed on the Scud missiles Saddam had indiscriminately rained down on Israeli cities in an attempt to gain Muslim support for his war. These restrictions proved to be inefficient as Saddam toyed with the weapons inspectors leading President Clinton to repeatedly bomb Iraq in order to make them comply.
Then came the September 11 attacks which made America feel vulnerable like never before. While an enemy like Saddam was barely tolerated before that was now seen as unacceptable. So even if saying the second Gulf War was a war for oil is wrong, oil plays a central role in understanding why America and Iraq were enemies in the first place. America’s like all other industrial economies is dependent on oil imports, America with its dominant military force has taken on the old British role of making sure the world economy’s oil supply is safe. Looking at the war as something that started in 2003 it is easy to understand how some might believe it was fought to gain control over Iraq’s oil, especially when told so by various America haters. But with a longer perspective one should be able to understand how this is foolish while still appreciating the role oil plays in America’s relationship with the Middle East.
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