Kieren, I certainly concede that there may very well be other motivations at work other than greed -- and likely are given the current president’s family history in this area and that of his administration advisers. Saddam Hussein is not only a threat, he’s a constant irritation to any sitting president. If you look at the Axis of Evil speech, it is possible that there was some administration “vision” of a unified world cleaning up all the trouble spots. A nice sentiment, but you have to wonder how practical it is even with the cooperation of allied nations. And, I do believe that the driving factor, what set Iraq aprat from similar villians, can only be oil.
However, greed, IMO, must still be considered as part of the "mix" of motivations. Just how much it or any other factor is the dominates the action is the debate, IMO. Primary driver or ancillary benefit? The various motivations expressed by a variety of parties seem to be:
The purely self-interest angle. The US and British multinational oil companies controlled 75% of the Iraqi oil production until the nationalization of Iraqi oil in 1972. Iraq increasingly turned to the Soviet and French governments for development funds and partnerships. Further, the Iraqi oil production infrastructure is in very sorry shape, requiring tremendous improvement efforts, which will benefit a broad range of manufacturing companies. Also, Iraqi crude is really sweet crude. It is low sulfur, which helps a US refining industry that is gearing up with substantial infrastructure upgrades to meet new gasoline and diesel low-sulfur rules in the next five years or so. The lower the sulfur in the crude, the easier it is to produce low-sulfur petroleum products like diesel and gasoline. I couldn’t imagine that this oil would prevent having to make these expensive upgrades completely. It might reduce the modifications but you would have to assume 100 percent utilization. It might lower operational costs when used compared to other crude, but I don’t know enough about cracking towers, etc. to say.
The threat to oil supplies angle. Here’s what Cheney himself has to say about Hussein, weapons of mass destruction and oil at a recent VFW speech. "… What he wants is time, and more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons," Cheney said. "Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror and a seat atop 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail."
The “proactive” benefits angle. The following is from a Boston Globe article. “Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, contends that a pro-US Iraq would lead to a reassessment of the US-Saudi alliance, which dates to World War II but has become strained since Sept. 11 attacks, and the worsening of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A friendly Iraq - home to the world's second-largest oil reserves - would provide an alternative to Saudi Arabia for basing US troops. Its oil reserves would make Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, less important in setting prices, he said. In general, others contend, a US-allied Iraq could work to diminish the influence of OPEC, long dominated by Saudi Arabia, over oil supplies and prices. The reserves under Iraq are second only to Saudi Arabia.”
From a practical, non-oil perspective, it has been theorized that a friendly, democratic Iraqi regime would serve as a shining example for the region, lessen the threat to Israel, eliminate the sanctions which have been highly criticized, improve the lot of the Iraqi people, perhaps encourage secular efforts in Iran, perhaps encourage a friendlier Syria, spearhead an international crusade to end threats and irritations from the Axis of Evil(tm)… It sounds good, but as proud as I am of the US we don’t seem to have had all that much success after the Marshall plan with our nation building efforts in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. The democracy is often democracy in name only, with little long-term viability. This is more frightening to me than any of the oil motives, because it could lead to the exact opposite of intentions. Hard to say.
Rip, I full agree that Iraq has violated UN sanctions, I am just noting that this wasn’t much of a public issue until about two weeks ago. It is a justification, a definite legality, but more of a message and justifier than the motivation. I’m sure that from this day forward we will be focusing with laser-like attention on sanctioned countries like Angola, Liberia, Rwanda, and Somalia (at least still sanctioned as of May 2002). Not to mention the countries that help violate sanctions.
Take Angola, for example. A variety of countries either formally, or through a general lack of enforcement, allowed sanction violations to occur ranging from arms and fuel exports to diamond imports. A list includes Burkina Faso, Togo, Zaire, Rwanda, Zambia, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Morocco, Namibia, Republic of Congo, South Africa, Belgium, France, Portugal, Switzerland, and the United States. What about PRC and North Korea, which have sold arms in violation of various sanctions but managed to avoid a “formal” involvement?”
It will be interesting to see how the administration reacts to the current Iraqi offer. “Won’t take yes for an answer…” (thanks Guradian) would seem to be the case initially. Officials were stating up until the announcement that they had no doubt that Hussein would reject the US demands (and I don’t believe Hussein has accepted all the demands as of yet though). However, for a Texan, our president’s poker skills seem to be lacking. All Hussein had to do was call the bluff. The conditions made this a steep bet for Hussein, but GW has to draw another card since his UN support just took a hit. Perhaps this is the face-saving event both parties need right now. Perhaps not.
Charon
