Historians' Take on the News: Archives 3-17-03 to 4-15-03
This is a serious charge. Even in the Bay Area, where many are skeptical of
the Bush administration's motives, we don't want to believe our nation would
invade another country for its oil.
Americans are not like that, we tell ourselves. We are a moral people. We are
a democracy, a nation ruled by law, governed by noble ideals.
Even at the height of the anti-war movement in the late 1960s, no one ever accused the United States of sending half a million men to Vietnam in order to grab their tin and tungsten. Everyone knew that Vietnam -- right or wrong -- was an ideological war, an effort to contain communism.
Why, then, do so many people believe that oil plays such an important role
in influencing American foreign policy?
In part, it is because recent reports in the national media have observed that
U.S. and British oil firms, which currently do not have Iraqi oil contracts,
stand to benefit from a post-Hussein, American-friendly government.
But it is not only the United States and Great Britain who stand accused of
coveting Iraqi oil. Right now, the Turks are poised to fight the Kurds over
the oil fields in Northern Iraq. France and Russia, moreover, have threatened
to veto a U.N. resolution not only to contain U.S. power, but because each fears
losing lucrative contracts negotiated with the current Iraqi regime. ...
In a 1998 letter to then-President Bill Clinton, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, now the most outspoken hawks in the Bush administration -- wrote that "if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction . . . a significant portion of the world's supply of oil will be put at hazard. The only acceptable strategy is . . . to undertake military action, as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy."
Clinton did not follow their advice. But George W. Bush, a Texas oil man whose
inner circle has become reckless with dreams of American power, has now made
the removal of Hussein the goal of our new pre-emptive war policy.
This is why many people now feel that American strategic concerns are too influential
in shaping our foreign policy. Most Americans would prefer to believe this impending
war is about spreading democracy throughout the region. But a classified State
Department report, disclosed to the Los Angeles Times, now disputes Bush's claim
that ousting Hussein will spur democratic reforms in the Mideast.
Our nation, add critics, would not be bribing and threatening other countries
and preparing to violate international law if Iraq's major export were almonds.