It was more about Israel than oil, IMO. Saddam was funding Palestinian homicide bombers. He was an obstacle to peace.
You’ve been reading too much of Mearsheimer’s Israel lobby nonsense. Israel attacked Saddam Hussein’s nuclear facilities 20 years ago, without even notifying the US. They do whatever they want, they have an extremly powerful military. Saddam may have been funding bombers, but so is every other Arab country in the world. By the way, Israel knew most of the funding for Hamas and Hizbolla is from Iran, not Iraq.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39051
Also, why do we need Iraq’s oil? Bush basically french kisses King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia when he visits. If our oil supply was in danger, we should have started drilling in ANWR.
That's a good point, because as everyone knows, once we ousted Saddam Hussein, Israel became perfectly secure. Iraq was not only Israel's main enemy but its only enemy. That's why it's totally true that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was primarily about Israel.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH30Ak04.html
It would seem that Israel warned against an invasion or Iraq arguing that the US should focus on Iran which they rightfully viewed as a much greater threat to global and ME security.
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Not at all. It was about giving us a land presence in the region that we control so that we would not need to beg permission from the Saudis or the Tutks next time we need to exert power. Why this region instead of Central Africa or Peru or Thailand? Oil, oil for the next three generations.
While we 'support' Israel much of our concern gor them isdue to their location as a powerful ally. If Israel were situated next to Morocco we would not be so vehement in our support.