Oil was a factor in the war but not in the way that Greenspan implies. With the sanctions lifted, SH would have had a large revenue stream to pursue terrorism and weapons. SH would have been happy to sell oil to finance his covert war against us. Oil is obviously a vital commodity. But SH wanted to sell oil to the highest bidder. He would not have withheld oil except in a time of war or as part of OPEC supply manipulation.
Yes, the oil factor was and is indirect as far as the USA is concerned. We have better suppliers such as Venezuela and Mexico, both stable and dependable as the Red Sox.
Greenspans point is related, as I read it, but even better. The point is that a nut in that area has an opportunity to blackmail the world economy.
Thank you! So many people seem to think the "about oil" argument only works one particular way. It's about oil because oil is valuable and strategic, and Saddam was a bad person who did bad stuff with the power the control of the oil gave him. This all would have been true even if Iraq's valuable commodity were something we neither used nor desired whatsoever.
The "about oil" people, however, have such little imagination that the only thing they can envision, if they convince themselves something is "about oil", is that we somehow want to take a bunch of oil. (And the fact that this isn't what we're doing, doesn't dissuade them in the slightest from this view.) This is really stupid and small-minded. It's like assuming that because the government's pursuit of Al Capone was about alcohol (which it was, after all), this means the government was primarily motivated by a desire to take Al Capone's alcohol. Similarly, no one would dispute that when a big coke dealer is arrested, the reason for his incarceration is coke. By the "about oil" type argument, this necessarily means that the government wanted to take all the guy's cocaine to use for themselves.
When an action taken by party X against party Y is "about" some underlying valuable commodity, even if that's an accurate characterization, it takes a very small mind to conclude that the whole event can be summarized by painting a simplistic cartoon picture in which X simply wants to take the commodity from Y.
Exactly! Greenspan is pouring fuel on the fires of leftists and Islamo-fascists who make the preposterous claim that the US is out for the oil of the “Arab world” and that the Iraq War is all about “blood for oil”..... but the fundamental issue has nothing to do with the US wanting to “take” anyone’s oil, it’s that as the sole superpower of the world we need to (1) deny the power of oil and money to a rogue regime like Saddam’s that was using it to fund terrorism and WOULD be re-constructing his WMD programs with it (whether or not the CIA was right that he already was doing so); (2) maintain as much stability as feasible in world energy and financial markets, which directly affects the well-being and very EMPLOYMENT of countless millions in the USA.
When we kicked Saddam out of Kuwait we did not then help ourselves the the entire oil and gas supply, we merely made sure that it was protected and allowed to be offered on the international markets without funding Saddam’s war and terror machine.
Unfortunately, we really need to do the same to Iran and Saudi Arabia, remove their evil regimes from exploiting the funding of petrodollars for activities dangerous to humanity and civilization..... but most people in the west prefer ostrich-style passivity over such dangerous and controversial actions.
when someone makes a nutjob “it was for oil” statement, what they really mean is “profits are EEEEEVIL” if it is for oil.