quote:
Originally posted by JQ:
Does anyone disagree with these statements:

1. "The war was mainly motivated by oil."
2. "We never really cared about bringing Democracy to Iraq."
I'm in complete agreement with G-Man and PJP's responses. Our responses have laid out abundantly that there were larger issues than oil.

More specifically, we get very cheap oil now from Venezuela, Nigeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and a huge amount of cheap oil from Russia.
We don't NEED Iraq's oil.

As Bush said in his 1-28-2003 State of the Union address (which I've linked and quoted repeatedly), Iraq's oil and resources "belong to the Iraqi people" and are not bounty of conquest for the United States. Revenue for oil production in Iraq is proposed to pay back SOME of the debt the U.S. incurred from the war and reconstruction, but that is FAR from profiting from the occupation.

As I've said prior, if it was about greed and cheap oil, Bush could have just cut a deal with Saddam Hussein, and saved himself the trouble and expense of waging war.

On top of that, gas was about 1.06 a gallon when Bush was inaugurated (at least in my area), and I now pay about 1.47 a gallon. So it wasn't a war to get us cheap oil either.

THE WAR WAS ABOUT A DEFIANT ROGUE NATION THAT DISOBEYED 12 YEARS OF WARNINGS FROM THE U.N., and (as PJP's link above shows, with the inside perspective of Iraq's former head of nuclear weapons development, Dr. Khidir Hamza), it was only a matter of time until Saddam Hussein got nuclear weapons or other WMD's and threatened his neighbors, even WITH sanctions strangling Iraq's economy.
I'm glad Saddam was taken out, before one day, unexpectedly and unforseen, he announced joining the North Korea Nuclear Club.
North Korea was similarly not seen as a threat, until they suddenly announced they had nuclear weapons.

Finally, I think the goal in Iraq is clearly to plant seeds of democracy in the region. Otherwise, why would we EVER give the Iraqis sovereignty, let alone do so just six short months from now?

A lot of people disagree that democracy is possible in Iraq and other Muslim countries, but despite how Bush-bashers are constantly trying to tear down what is being accomplished in Iraq, democracy is still being attempted and expanded in Iraq, with success that is under-reported.

The idea is, if Iraq has a strong democracy, then that puts pressure on Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to make democratic reforms as well.
Otherwise, if Iraq prospers as a democracy, people will flock to Iraq from neighboring states, where there are economic opportunities and freedoms not available in their own countries. Maybe a year from now, we'll begin to see that happen.