Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Democrats' Big Problem: The War In Iraq Wasn't About Oil (Hoist On Their Own Petard Alert)
Townhall.com ^ | 8/6/2008 | Ben Shapiro

Posted on 08/05/2008 9:34:55 PM PDT by goldstategop

This 2008 presidential election cycle has been jam-packed with irony. John McCain has been forced to rely on the 527 groups he so despises; Barack Obama has been denounced by members of the black community but embraced by upper class whites; the Clintons have been rejected by the very media that put them in power.

But perhaps the most ironic fact of the 2008 election cycle is this: John McCain will win the 2008 election because the war in Iraq was not a war for oil.

Since the liberation of Iraq in March 2003, liberals have been screaming that the war to remove Saddam Hussein and his henchmen was a facade. They have been shouting for years on end that the real reason for U.S. presence in Iraq was to secure resources for the Exxon/Mobils of the world. They have been shrieking that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, oilmen both, hijacked American foreign policy to pad their pocketbooks.

There was only one problem with that logic, of course: The price of oil has been skyrocketing since the invasion of Iraq. As of March 2003, the price of oil was well under $40 per barrel. The price of oil is now nearly $120 per barrel, and within the last few weeks it has been above $140 per barrel. If the war in Iraq was a war to open the resource floodgates for Big Oil, it was a massive failure.

The war in Iraq was never about oil, of course. And that simple fact, ironically enough, spells doom for Democrats. With oil prices ridiculously high, Americans are demanding that Congress open domestic territory to oil exploration -- and Democrats are stonewalling. House Republicans are demanding that Congress allow drilling; Democrats are denying an up-or-down vote. And Americans don't like it at all.

Only 14 percent of Americans now approve of Congress' no-drilling energy policy. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's anti-drilling, "save the world" strategy is making her dramatically unpopular -- so unpopular that she is secretly telling Congressional Democrats to vote for drilling. And Barack Obama -- who just recently suggested that Americans ought to focus on properly inflating their car tires in order to best conserve gasoline -- is now backtracking on his no-offshore-drilling pledge.

If the war in Iraq had been about oil, Democrats would be sitting in the catbird seat right now. The price of gasoline would be less than half its current price; Americans would be willing to countenance the Luddite idiocy of the no-drilling Dems. Instead, Americans are steaming over high gasoline prices, and they are rightfully blaming the left.

All of which makes Barack Obama's candidacy look increasingly tenuous. When Obama was nominated, his two major policy selling points were opposition to the war in Iraq and hard-core environmentalism. At the time, those policies looked like a road to success in the general election.

But times have changed. The war in Iraq is going well, thanks to the surge promoted by McCain. Obama has struggled to deal with this on-the-ground reality, thickly suggesting instead that had his immediate withdrawal strategy been pursued, the situation on the ground would be even better in Iraq. Obama's McGovernite anti-war position and his refusal to acknowledge the great work done by our troops now puts him on the wrong side of history.

The real killer for Obama, however, is his deep green environmentalism. Obama opposes drilling -- or at least he did until this week. And Americans don't trust that Obama has completely overcome his knee-jerk anti-drilling attitudes.

For Obama, his biggest strength -- opposition to the war in Iraq on both security grounds and on grounds that it was a war for oil -- now constitutes his biggest weakness. His biggest problem is that the war in Iraq wasn't about oil. If it had been, perhaps he'd still be leading in the polls.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008election; benshapiro; congress; democraticparty; democrats; drillheredrillnow; energy; iraqwar; nancypelosi; neoluddite; obama; petard; sanfrannan; townhall
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-26 next last
There's the biggest irony of an election filled with ironies. Had the Democrats' not been so vociferous in their opposition to a war for oil, they would not find themselves out of grace right now with the American people. The very advantages that they hoped would propel them to a landslide win November at the moment is turning out to be a case of being hoist on their own petard. If so, its a richly deserved one!

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

1 posted on 08/05/2008 9:34:56 PM PDT by goldstategop
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

“so unpopular that she is secretly telling Congressional Democrats to vote for drilling.”

Correction: she is telling them to SAY they are for more drilling. Big difference.


2 posted on 08/05/2008 9:45:47 PM PDT by nralife
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

If the war was about oil, why is al Qaeda fighting us.


3 posted on 08/05/2008 9:46:27 PM PDT by Always Right (Obama: more arrogant than Bill Clinton, more naive than Jimmy Carter, and more liberal than LBJ.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
And Iraq has a budget surplus, while we borrow money and devalue our dollar to rebuild them.

And, of course, we shouldn't forget to give credit to ol' Donny Rumsfeld himself, the guy who promised us that the costs of our adventure in Iraq would be covered by the oil revenues.

Iraqis will pay for the rebuilding of their country, the defense secretary noted, through oil revenues, recovered assets, international trade, direct foreign investments and contributions from the international community.

4 posted on 08/05/2008 9:50:49 PM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
Only 14 percent of Americans now approve of Congress' no-drilling energy policy.

The Democrat party is only selectively democratic.

5 posted on 08/05/2008 9:52:12 PM PDT by Yardstick
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
“If the war in Iraq had been about oil, Democrats would be sitting in the catbird seat right now. The price of gasoline would be less than half its current price; Americans would be willing to countenance the Luddite idiocy of the no-drilling Dems.”

Hooey - the Dem's Party of Change strategy of 2004 would have been a non-starter. The GOP would still control Congress and Sen. McCain would never have been nominated.

6 posted on 08/05/2008 9:57:43 PM PDT by decal ("You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

I agree with what is said however with the record profits oil companies are reaping right now you would think some oil men pockets are getting lined for several generations to benefit from it.


7 posted on 08/05/2008 10:00:06 PM PDT by BreezyDog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Always Right

Thw war was about oil in the sense that could not allow a man like Hussein to control the word’s second largest reserves of oil, because he had make clear his intention to us it to arm himself with WMD.


8 posted on 08/05/2008 10:03:42 PM PDT by RobbyS (Ecce homo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: BreezyDog

The “record” profits are short term and will be spent in Iraq and elsewhere for development of new fields. That’s the history of events since the Second World War.


9 posted on 08/05/2008 10:09:12 PM PDT by RobbyS (Ecce homo)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
bumper-sticker
 
 

Contact your Congress critters to let them know that you are tired of high gas prices.

U. S. Senate

U. S. House of Representatives

10 posted on 08/05/2008 10:10:40 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BreezyDog

Record profits, right, but who really got the record profits? Oil company about 11+ billion, US government 32+ billion in taxes. Oil company made about 8 cents per gallon off their product, government made 4 times that and didn’t have to spend a dime doing it. So, who is the real greedy profiteers here, not the oil company, but the US government and their insane taxes.


11 posted on 08/05/2008 10:15:20 PM PDT by calex59
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
If you read Obama's speech from Monday, in paragraph 8 he says "It will do no good to drill."

Then in paragraph 11 he say, "The Oil Companies have 68 million acres leased. Drill or loose the lease. WE NEED THAT OIL NOW."

Can you explain the constradiction.

12 posted on 08/05/2008 10:19:41 PM PDT by Texas Songwriter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

Response to headline: Ya think????


13 posted on 08/05/2008 10:31:09 PM PDT by Anti-Hillary (Yo Barry, IF FOR 20 YEARS YOU STAY IN THE PEW, IT'S BECAUSE YOU SHARE THE VIEW!!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Anti-Hillary
"Response to headline: Ya think????"

Yes I do, but them Liberals, even when put face-to-face with this fact, will deny this fact as fact, in fact.

14 posted on 08/05/2008 10:45:23 PM PDT by the anti-liberal
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Gondring

Thats not what he said.

He said that Iraqis will rebuild Iraq with their own money.

And they are doing that, at high speed right now, now that peace is being established.

He didn’t say that Iraq oil money will pay for the US occupation.


15 posted on 08/05/2008 11:13:18 PM PDT by buwaya
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Texas Songwriter

Nobody can explain the contradiction, because the contradiction is essential to the contradictory message. The contradictory message is necessary to suit his contradictory backers.

He has to be too many things to too many people.


16 posted on 08/05/2008 11:15:39 PM PDT by buwaya
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: buwaya

Oh, so they are going to repay all the billions we’ve handed out to rebuild?

Cool.


17 posted on 08/05/2008 11:16:57 PM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: calex59; BreezyDog
Record profits, right, but who really got the record profits? Oil company about 11+ billion, US government 32+ billion in taxes. Oil company made about 8 cents per gallon off their product, government made 4 times that and didn’t have to spend a dime doing it. So, who is the real greedy profiteers here, not the oil company, but the US government and their insane taxes.

Facts are annoying to some people aren't they.

I've been preaching similar observations of yours to people for years. Too many jerks just listen to the media whining about record profits. If these morons had any brains, they'd have invested in the same companies they're complaining about.

18 posted on 08/05/2008 11:17:39 PM PDT by Cobra64 (www.BulletBras.net)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
We will go to war for oil though if the Democrats don't stop obstructing our domestic energy policy.

What is the cost of the Democrat "No Domestic Energy Policy?"

All of that puts the U.S. in a position that war for oil or
complete economic collapse will be our only choices.
You can't frustrate every source of domestic energy
without consequences. Our enemies will blackmail us
to the extent that we are vulnerable to blackmail.

The Democrats are leading us into a real war for oil.
A war we won't have the energy to fight.

19 posted on 08/05/2008 11:55:16 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin '36 ... Olympics for murdering regimes. ... Beijing '08)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

I wouldn’t count on surfing a wave of anger over oil into the White House. Prices are dropping now because Americans somehow learned to conserve and change their habits. The thing is that everyone will have to get off their motor scooters come winter and also pay high heating bills but that won’t happen until after the election.


20 posted on 08/06/2008 12:17:00 AM PDT by TheThinker (Capitalism is the natural result of a democratic government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-26 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson