As should be obvious, the invasion and occupation of Iraq—and the coming attack against Iran and Syria—is not “largely” about oil or even Israel’s “security.” It is about flattening Arab and Muslim societies and reshuffling the charred and blood-spattered remains into splintered, emasculated, and “failed” vassal states.
Now that he is retired, elderly, and has nothing to lose, former fed banking cartel don Alan Greenspan “has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil,” the Times Online reports. “In his long-awaited memoir,” Greenspan writes (or his ghost writer writes) that he is “saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Greenspan’s use of the adverb “largely” is deceptive. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, as Bush crime family intimate Philip Zelikow admitted, was about the “unstated threat” to Israel, that is to say Israel’s hegemony in the neighborhood. “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it’s the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002. “And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.” Because it was not a “popular sell,” the neocons were obliged to invent any number of implausible Brothers Grimm stories about weapons of mass destruction, all of it claptrap lies, not that such lies carry a burden of responsibility as most Americans apparently don’t mind that the decider-commander guy is a pathological liar.
If indeed Greenspan is at least partially right, the effort to steal Iraq’s oil is floundering big time. “Despite a large reconstruction effort (including Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) support of $1.72 billion), the industry has not been able to meet hydrocarbon production and export targets since 2004,” reports EnerPub. “According to the January 2007, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) report, Iraq’s petroleum sector faces technical challenges in procuring, transporting and storing crude and refined products, as well as managing pricing controls and imports, fighting smuggling and corruption, improving budget execution, and managing sustainability of operations. Oil production has not recovered to pre-war levels, and parliament and cabinet officials are working to map out investment and ownership rights that will help move the industry forward.”
As Greg Palast notes, the oil industry has a vested interest in making sure Iraq does not export oil instead of the other way around, as shortage translates into gargantuan profits. “The oil majors had a better use for Iraq’s oil than drilling it—not drilling it,” writes Palast. The oil bigs had bought Iraq’s concession to seal it up and keep it off the market.”
And [oil] won’t be drilled, not unless Iraq says, “Mother, may I?” to Saudi Arabia, or, as the James Baker/Council on Foreign Relations paper says, “Saudi Arabia may punish Iraq.” And believe me, Iraq wouldn’t want that. The decision to expand production has, for now, been kept out of Iraqi’s hands by the latest method of suppressing Iraq’s oil flow—the 2003 invasion and resistance to invasion. And it has been darn effective. Iraq’s output in 2003, 2004 and 2005 was less than produced under the restrictive Oil-for-Food Program. Whether by design or happenstance, this decline in output has resulted in tripling the profits of the five U.S. oil majors to $89 billion for a single year, 2005, compared to pre-invasion 2002. That suggests an interesting arithmetic equation. Big Oil’s profits are up $89 billion a year in the same period the oil industry boosted contributions to Mr. Bush’s reelection campaign to roughly $40 million.
In other words, Mr. Greenspan is correct, but not in the way imagined or reported by the Times Online.
As should be obvious, the invasion and occupation of Iraq—and the coming attack against Iran and Syria—is not “largely” about oil or even Israel’s “security.” It is about flattening Arab and Muslim societies and reshuffling the charred and blood-spattered remains into splintered, emasculated, and “failed” vassal states. No doubt the retired banking cartel mob boss and former libertarian Greenspan knows this, but he is not saying. Instead, we are presented the neocon version of the Hazel Branch, a fairy tale for children, with transparently nonsensical allusions to “al-Qaeda” and shadowy Quds Force operatives passing along IEDs to Iraqi dead-enders with venal intent. A popular mythology shall emerge, as it did in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, this time directed against Iran and Syria.
As to the latter, the neocon-infested Israeli daily, the Jerusalem Post, tells us “the alleged Israeli raid into Syria 10 days ago targeted a North Korean-Syrian nuclear facility,” a turgid fantasia, complete with absurd florid embellishments, proffered by John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, from his haunt at the American Enterprise Institute, the neocon hang-out where Bush gets his criminal minds. “Bolton suggested that Syria, which he said has long sought a range of weapons of mass destruction, might have agreed to provide ‘facilities for uranium enrichment’ on its territory for two allied countries which are being closely watched for nuclear development,” David Horovitz writes. “Bolton spoke as American newspapers reported that the alleged IAF raid, over which Israel has maintained official silence, was aimed at a facility in northern Syria close to the Turkish border, and that the strike may have been linked to the recent arrival of a shipment from North Korea, labeled as cement, but believed by Israel to contain nuclear equipment.”
Back in 2003, we were told the U.S. planned to impose a “Cuba Lite” embargo on North Korea. “A senior adviser to the Pentagon told The Sunday Telegraph that attempts to export nuclear devices would now result in routine ‘interdiction’ and seizing of ships suspected by US intelligence of carrying such material…. Under the new plans, nuclear ’spot-checks’ would be more aggressively pursued closer to North Korea.” As we know, the Pentagon tells us these sort of things after the fact, so we can assume North Korea’s shipping is subject to interdiction, not that we are privy to such information as it makes selling the fable that North Korea is providing Syria with nukes a more difficult task, not that the Britney obsessed masses here in America are paying attention.
Meanwhile, the drumbeat marching toward war—or a campaign of shock and awe mass murder—continues. “Senior American intelligence and defense officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt…. Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated program of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran…. US action [against the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran] would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and even its armed forces,” and of course, although unstated, against Iran’s civilian infrastructure, thus reducing the country to the sort of Neolithic condition favored by the neocons. If we are to believe the Jerusalem Post story cited above, an Israeli attack against Syria’s phantom nuclear facility on the Turkish border may be timed to coincide with the U.S. attack. Of course, there is no nuclear lab in Syria and the Israeli attack will be a repeat of the brutal IDF attack against Lebanon last summer, aimed primarily at hapless civilians.
Thus, with each passing day, the neocon master plan for destroying Arab and Muslim society comes into sharper focus. It now appears the neocons will hold their hand close to the vest for several months and wait until the presidential selection—excuse me, election—rolls around before they launch their attack with the assistance of their criminal cohort, Israel, and in the process pass the resulting mess on to the next decider-commander guy, or more likely gal, as the AIPAC groveler and Bilderberg doorstop Hillary Clinton is slotted to rule next time around. Naturally, come Hillary’s coronation, nothing much will change and it will be business as usual, although we can expect the neocons to retire, write their memoirs, and do the lucrative speaking circuit. Here in America, we love our war criminals, shower them with book contracts, prestigious academic positions, and weekly appearances on Fox News as “experts,” that is to say experts in mass murder and mayhem, when they should be doing the orange jumpsuit perp walk toward the gallows.
Addendum
Unlike Iran, in denial the neocons will target their water treatment plants and hospitals, Syria appears to understand all too well what the neocons and Israel have in mind. “An official Syrian daily warned on Sunday that US ‘lies’ over nuclear cooperation with North Korea could serve as a pretext for an attack on Syria following an Israeli violation of its airspace,” reports Space War. “This is nothing new, accusing Syria of things that it has nothing to do with… But what is new is the scope of the new lie and the way it is being peddled,” Ath-Thawra told the media. “The United States and Israel need a file… after the recent violation of Syrian airspace by Israeli planes. The latest accusation could be a prelude to more attacks on Syria.” Ath-Thawra understands “the occupation of Iraq was based on this kind of accusation,” that is to say neocon lies, piled up like cordwood.
—
In order to promulgate the official propaganda fantasy—diligent Israelis “blew apart Syrian nuclear cache”—the British newspaper Times Online is running a story about the “audacious raid” on the fictional nuclear depot, complete with imaginative “bunkers … in flames” and Shaldag air force commando teams mysteriously knocked out of action. “According to Israeli sources, preparations for the attack had been going on since late spring, when Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, presented Olmert with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea,” write the collaborative fiction team of Uzi Mahnaimi, Sarah Baxter, and Michael Sheridan. “The Israeli spy chief apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles.” Of course, as Syrians are monsters, same as all Arabs and Muslims are monsters, according to the Israeli take on history and race-based psychology, there is no doubt the Syrians planned to nuke Tel Aviv, that is soon as their evil North Korean cohorts got them up to speed.
“Washington was rife with speculation last week about the precise nature of the operation. One source said the air strikes were a diversion for a daring Israeli commando raid, in which nuclear materials were intercepted en route to Iran and hauled to Israel. Others claimed they were destroyed in the attack,” the trio write, admitting that it took a bit of time to iron out the official fiction. “There is no doubt, however, that North Korea is accused of nuclear cooperation with Syria, helped by AQ Khan’s network. John Bolton, who was undersecretary for arms control at the State Department, told the United Nations in 2004 the Pakistani nuclear scientist had ’several other’ customers besides Iran, Libya and North Korea.” Of course, we can’t expect the script readers over at the Times to mention as well that most of what the neocons told us about Iraq turned out to be deception and lies. For some reason, this time around, we are supposed to suspend credulity and swallow this sucker hook, line, and sinker.
“Some of his evidence came from the CIA, which had reported to Congress that it viewed ‘Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern.’” Obviously, the CIA is back in the saddle after it was house cleaned by the neocon Porter Goss, and it will no longer disagree with the neocons, as it did back in 2003 when it stated Iraq did not pose a nuclear threat and Manucher Ghorbanifar, the notorious Iranian arms dealer and accused intelligence fabricator, was called out as a fraud after he attempted to pass off a tall tale claiming Saddam was shopping for uranium.
Naturally, this latest bit of propaganda has already worked its way into the “factual” record the neocons are building against Israel’s enemies. Soon enough, this story and others currently under construction will be rolled out as “evidence” Syria and Iran want to slaughter our grade schoolers in their sleep, thus we “have no choice” but to respond by unleashing a methodical and horrific campaign directed against Iranian and Syrian grandmothers and toddlers.
Odds are another nine eleven event will not be required to convince the American people, as they will accept almost anything their rulers tell them, so long as a half-ass explanation is provided, no matter how weak and specious.
Greenspan’s use of the adverb “largely” is deceptive. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, as Bush crime family intimate Philip Zelikow admitted, was about the “unstated threat” to Israel, that is to say Israel’s hegemony in the neighborhood. “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it’s the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002. “And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.” Because it was not a “popular sell,” the neocons were obliged to invent any number of implausible Brothers Grimm stories about weapons of mass destruction, all of it claptrap lies, not that such lies carry a burden of responsibility as most Americans apparently don’t mind that the decider-commander guy is a pathological liar.
If indeed Greenspan is at least partially right, the effort to steal Iraq’s oil is floundering big time. “Despite a large reconstruction effort (including Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) support of $1.72 billion), the industry has not been able to meet hydrocarbon production and export targets since 2004,” reports EnerPub. “According to the January 2007, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) report, Iraq’s petroleum sector faces technical challenges in procuring, transporting and storing crude and refined products, as well as managing pricing controls and imports, fighting smuggling and corruption, improving budget execution, and managing sustainability of operations. Oil production has not recovered to pre-war levels, and parliament and cabinet officials are working to map out investment and ownership rights that will help move the industry forward.”
As Greg Palast notes, the oil industry has a vested interest in making sure Iraq does not export oil instead of the other way around, as shortage translates into gargantuan profits. “The oil majors had a better use for Iraq’s oil than drilling it—not drilling it,” writes Palast. The oil bigs had bought Iraq’s concession to seal it up and keep it off the market.”
And [oil] won’t be drilled, not unless Iraq says, “Mother, may I?” to Saudi Arabia, or, as the James Baker/Council on Foreign Relations paper says, “Saudi Arabia may punish Iraq.” And believe me, Iraq wouldn’t want that. The decision to expand production has, for now, been kept out of Iraqi’s hands by the latest method of suppressing Iraq’s oil flow—the 2003 invasion and resistance to invasion. And it has been darn effective. Iraq’s output in 2003, 2004 and 2005 was less than produced under the restrictive Oil-for-Food Program. Whether by design or happenstance, this decline in output has resulted in tripling the profits of the five U.S. oil majors to $89 billion for a single year, 2005, compared to pre-invasion 2002. That suggests an interesting arithmetic equation. Big Oil’s profits are up $89 billion a year in the same period the oil industry boosted contributions to Mr. Bush’s reelection campaign to roughly $40 million.
In other words, Mr. Greenspan is correct, but not in the way imagined or reported by the Times Online.
As should be obvious, the invasion and occupation of Iraq—and the coming attack against Iran and Syria—is not “largely” about oil or even Israel’s “security.” It is about flattening Arab and Muslim societies and reshuffling the charred and blood-spattered remains into splintered, emasculated, and “failed” vassal states. No doubt the retired banking cartel mob boss and former libertarian Greenspan knows this, but he is not saying. Instead, we are presented the neocon version of the Hazel Branch, a fairy tale for children, with transparently nonsensical allusions to “al-Qaeda” and shadowy Quds Force operatives passing along IEDs to Iraqi dead-enders with venal intent. A popular mythology shall emerge, as it did in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, this time directed against Iran and Syria.
As to the latter, the neocon-infested Israeli daily, the Jerusalem Post, tells us “the alleged Israeli raid into Syria 10 days ago targeted a North Korean-Syrian nuclear facility,” a turgid fantasia, complete with absurd florid embellishments, proffered by John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, from his haunt at the American Enterprise Institute, the neocon hang-out where Bush gets his criminal minds. “Bolton suggested that Syria, which he said has long sought a range of weapons of mass destruction, might have agreed to provide ‘facilities for uranium enrichment’ on its territory for two allied countries which are being closely watched for nuclear development,” David Horovitz writes. “Bolton spoke as American newspapers reported that the alleged IAF raid, over which Israel has maintained official silence, was aimed at a facility in northern Syria close to the Turkish border, and that the strike may have been linked to the recent arrival of a shipment from North Korea, labeled as cement, but believed by Israel to contain nuclear equipment.”
Back in 2003, we were told the U.S. planned to impose a “Cuba Lite” embargo on North Korea. “A senior adviser to the Pentagon told The Sunday Telegraph that attempts to export nuclear devices would now result in routine ‘interdiction’ and seizing of ships suspected by US intelligence of carrying such material…. Under the new plans, nuclear ’spot-checks’ would be more aggressively pursued closer to North Korea.” As we know, the Pentagon tells us these sort of things after the fact, so we can assume North Korea’s shipping is subject to interdiction, not that we are privy to such information as it makes selling the fable that North Korea is providing Syria with nukes a more difficult task, not that the Britney obsessed masses here in America are paying attention.
Meanwhile, the drumbeat marching toward war—or a campaign of shock and awe mass murder—continues. “Senior American intelligence and defense officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt…. Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated program of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran…. US action [against the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran] would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and even its armed forces,” and of course, although unstated, against Iran’s civilian infrastructure, thus reducing the country to the sort of Neolithic condition favored by the neocons. If we are to believe the Jerusalem Post story cited above, an Israeli attack against Syria’s phantom nuclear facility on the Turkish border may be timed to coincide with the U.S. attack. Of course, there is no nuclear lab in Syria and the Israeli attack will be a repeat of the brutal IDF attack against Lebanon last summer, aimed primarily at hapless civilians.
Thus, with each passing day, the neocon master plan for destroying Arab and Muslim society comes into sharper focus. It now appears the neocons will hold their hand close to the vest for several months and wait until the presidential selection—excuse me, election—rolls around before they launch their attack with the assistance of their criminal cohort, Israel, and in the process pass the resulting mess on to the next decider-commander guy, or more likely gal, as the AIPAC groveler and Bilderberg doorstop Hillary Clinton is slotted to rule next time around. Naturally, come Hillary’s coronation, nothing much will change and it will be business as usual, although we can expect the neocons to retire, write their memoirs, and do the lucrative speaking circuit. Here in America, we love our war criminals, shower them with book contracts, prestigious academic positions, and weekly appearances on Fox News as “experts,” that is to say experts in mass murder and mayhem, when they should be doing the orange jumpsuit perp walk toward the gallows.
Addendum
Unlike Iran, in denial the neocons will target their water treatment plants and hospitals, Syria appears to understand all too well what the neocons and Israel have in mind. “An official Syrian daily warned on Sunday that US ‘lies’ over nuclear cooperation with North Korea could serve as a pretext for an attack on Syria following an Israeli violation of its airspace,” reports Space War. “This is nothing new, accusing Syria of things that it has nothing to do with… But what is new is the scope of the new lie and the way it is being peddled,” Ath-Thawra told the media. “The United States and Israel need a file… after the recent violation of Syrian airspace by Israeli planes. The latest accusation could be a prelude to more attacks on Syria.” Ath-Thawra understands “the occupation of Iraq was based on this kind of accusation,” that is to say neocon lies, piled up like cordwood.
—
In order to promulgate the official propaganda fantasy—diligent Israelis “blew apart Syrian nuclear cache”—the British newspaper Times Online is running a story about the “audacious raid” on the fictional nuclear depot, complete with imaginative “bunkers … in flames” and Shaldag air force commando teams mysteriously knocked out of action. “According to Israeli sources, preparations for the attack had been going on since late spring, when Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, presented Olmert with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea,” write the collaborative fiction team of Uzi Mahnaimi, Sarah Baxter, and Michael Sheridan. “The Israeli spy chief apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles.” Of course, as Syrians are monsters, same as all Arabs and Muslims are monsters, according to the Israeli take on history and race-based psychology, there is no doubt the Syrians planned to nuke Tel Aviv, that is soon as their evil North Korean cohorts got them up to speed.
“Washington was rife with speculation last week about the precise nature of the operation. One source said the air strikes were a diversion for a daring Israeli commando raid, in which nuclear materials were intercepted en route to Iran and hauled to Israel. Others claimed they were destroyed in the attack,” the trio write, admitting that it took a bit of time to iron out the official fiction. “There is no doubt, however, that North Korea is accused of nuclear cooperation with Syria, helped by AQ Khan’s network. John Bolton, who was undersecretary for arms control at the State Department, told the United Nations in 2004 the Pakistani nuclear scientist had ’several other’ customers besides Iran, Libya and North Korea.” Of course, we can’t expect the script readers over at the Times to mention as well that most of what the neocons told us about Iraq turned out to be deception and lies. For some reason, this time around, we are supposed to suspend credulity and swallow this sucker hook, line, and sinker.
“Some of his evidence came from the CIA, which had reported to Congress that it viewed ‘Syrian nuclear intentions with growing concern.’” Obviously, the CIA is back in the saddle after it was house cleaned by the neocon Porter Goss, and it will no longer disagree with the neocons, as it did back in 2003 when it stated Iraq did not pose a nuclear threat and Manucher Ghorbanifar, the notorious Iranian arms dealer and accused intelligence fabricator, was called out as a fraud after he attempted to pass off a tall tale claiming Saddam was shopping for uranium.
Naturally, this latest bit of propaganda has already worked its way into the “factual” record the neocons are building against Israel’s enemies. Soon enough, this story and others currently under construction will be rolled out as “evidence” Syria and Iran want to slaughter our grade schoolers in their sleep, thus we “have no choice” but to respond by unleashing a methodical and horrific campaign directed against Iranian and Syrian grandmothers and toddlers.
Odds are another nine eleven event will not be required to convince the American people, as they will accept almost anything their rulers tell them, so long as a half-ass explanation is provided, no matter how weak and specious.
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Israel: Imperial Pawn
19.09.2007 12:06
If you doubt this see this document:
A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties
by Oded Yinon
However it's not the case of the tail wagging the dog, Israel is a co-conspirator, as is the UK, in the Empire's plans, but it's clearly the ruling elite of the US who are ultimately in charge and calling the shots.
Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone have a good analysis of what is going on, check out their audio archives:
Greg Palast is really good on some things, but the problem with his oil analysis is that he is in denial over Peak Oil -- Peak Oil is clearly a pressing concern for the rulers of the Empire, otherwise why would food production be subverted for fuel production and why would Shell be considering using nuclear plants to provide power for the extraction of oil from shale/sand?
permawar
The oil is plenty important
19.09.2007 15:14
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It Really Is About the Oil–And Not Only in Iraq
20.09.2007 10:16
Oil and other energy resources are also the reason Washington is threatening Iran. There are other factors certainly, not least among them a desire for revenge on the Iranian revolution, but the fundamental motivation for the US threats of military action against Iran is to replace the current regime in Tehran with one that will do Washington’s bidding and provide them with access to that nation’s oil on terms set by DC, not Tehran. That is why the US overthrew Mossadegh back in 1953 and why it supported the Shah even after he was overthrown in 1979. Iran is estimated to have the world’s fifth largest oil reserve and second largest natural gas supply. But, if this is so, then why can’t the US just buy the stuff from them? It could, of course, but that would go against the stated desire of Washington to not only have unfettered access to energy resources, but to also be able to prevent potential competitors from having similar access. In other words, the men and women that run the US want exclusive control over the energy resources of Iraq and Iran and the only way they can get that is through military action, since Hussein was not going to agree to US terms for oil sales and neither will the Tehran regime.
Yet, despite the apparent desires of Dick Cheney and his band of bellicose Beltway warriors, that military action has yet to occur. While the world can certainly be thankful for that, it shouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet. In some of his recent comments on Iraq, George Bush stated that one of the reasons for the continued occupation of Iraq is the need to contain Iran. No matter what one thinks about the government in Tehran, the plain truth is that they have every right to be concerned about the future of Iraq. Just as certain is that they have the right to defend themselves from aggressive actions from groups supported by Washington. Likewise, they have the right to reject Washington’s impending designation of their Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist force. After all, if all things were fair, then a similar designation should be given to the CIA and the US military’s various special forces, all of whom are known to engage in what are essentially terrorist activities.
What about Israel? There are those that insist that Israel is behind the US drive against Iran and Syria. According to these folks, it is Tel Aviv’s desire for a greater Israel that is the guiding force behind Washington’s occupation of Iraq, its threats against Syria and desire to attack Iran. While it is certainly true that Tel Aviv might benefit from regime changes in these nations and there is no doubt that most of the US political establishment supports Israeli expansion, it seems downright foolish to claim that US policy in the Middle East and Central Asia is set by Tel Aviv. After all, it is Tel Aviv that receives military and financial support from Washington, not the other way around. This does not always mean that the two governments agree on specifics, but it does mean that they share both resources and a desire to create a world beneficial to them both. Still, however, Washington is the dominant member of this relationship, if for no other reason than that its financial support of Israel makes it possible for Israel to exist as the regional power that it is. Furthermore, it is the perennial veto held by Washington (and its refusal to demand enforcement of Security Council resolutions against Israel that Washington doesn’t veto) that has allowed Israel to continue its violations of international law without retribution. This doesn’t mean, of course, that Israel will not act alone, but the fact that it hasn’t is certainly an indication that Washington holds the leash in this relationship and not Tel Aviv. Poorly-behaved dogs will pull at their chains and maybe even bite their masters, but they also never forget the hand that provides them with their chow.
Just like in Iraq, any attack on Iran will probably not target oil producing facilities. Indeed, should an attack occur and actually succeed to the point where the US is able to bring in ground forces, it is fairly safe to predict that many of the first GIs on the ground will be deployed to guard those facilities, just like they were in Iraq. As retired general Wesley Clark put it in an op-ed in the September 16, 2007 Washington Post: “To prevent world oil prices from soaring, you’d have to try to protect every oil and gas rig, and the big ports and load points. “Of course, there is also the possibility that the facilities might already be under the control of the oil workers themselves, much like what occurred during the revolution in 1979-1981. Would these workers then become the enemy of the US-led “liberation” forces–the same position that many of the citizens of Iraq now find themselves? If so, one wonders what they have learned from their neighbors to the west in regards to the US military.
Ron Jacobs
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http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/09/it-really-is-about-the-oil-and-not-only-in-iraq/