These thoughts have been rattling around in my head for a while and I feel compelled to put them in a form that is both public and coherent. :-)
Reason 1: To re-establish the American military presence in the GulfThe most public reason was to appear competent and proactive. That is domestic politics at work. But with the Middle East relatively quiet and the Soviet Union, our presence there was fading as it was no longer needed. This left our leadership nervous about a crisis happening with us not being in a position to do anything about it.
Reason 2: Iraq is a great country to invadeWe had been there once before, and had maintained constant surveillance and reconnaissance of the country since 1990. Weapons inspectors were all over the place. We had detailed maps and invasion routes and good intelligence of enemy capabilities and positions.
Iraq's military had been devastated in the 1991 war and not been rebuilt. There was no air force, and the equipment of the Iraqi Army was obsolete.
Iraq is also great for invasions geographically. It is mostly flat and open, great for fast-moving, hard-hitting armored vehicles, long-range artillery and rocket launchers, attack helicopters, and fighter jets providing front-line combat support.
And nobody liked Saddam. We all knew he was a murderous. sociopathic thug that nobody credible was going to stand up for. The constant sanctions on Iraq, along with the military overflights of the "no-fly zones" gives the public impression that it's only kinda sorta maybe a sovereign country.
Oh, and it turns out is a shitty country to occupy.
Reason #3: Iraq has a lot of oilAnd not in the "It's an oil-rich MidEast country" sense, either. During the Iran-Iraq War, from 1980 to 1988, Iraqi oil production was down. Unlike Iran, which has a very long coastline, Iraq only has a little chunk of the Persian Gulf coastline and one major port city, Basra. Basra was easily in range of Iranian forces throughout the conflict, inhibiting oil exports. As a result, in that 8-year time span, the rest of the Middle East was pumping normally while Iraq's output was lowered.
Then during Operation Desert Shield to Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq was under embargoes of one sort or another, again keeping the oil in the ground instead of in your gas tank. And after the invasion of 2003, insurgents and ongoing civil war has kept the oil in the ground. Neglected and outdated equipment is not replaces and barely running, repairs are being undone by sabotage, and new equipment is hard to come by as nobody wants to spend a lot of cash on stuff that's going to be blown up.
So, the rest of the Middle East has been pumping happily along while the Iraqi oil stays in the ground. Now there is a lot more left under Iraq than the other countries in the MidEast, and Iraq will probably be the last country in the region to run out of oil to pump.
Reason %4: Oil=National SecurityIn their single-mindedness they equate oil with national security. Anything that keeps America form getting the oil that it needs must be destroyed. America, (I mean the world, the world) must have free access to those oil markets. And they are not really happy about anybody but American oil companies doing the pumping, either.
Now, it is true that oil is vital to our nation's economy. A hell of a lot depends on it. Motor fuels, plastics, heating fuels, and lubricants are critical to our modern way of living. However, I think maybe they worry too much. Any country that has oil will sell it, regardless of who is in charge. And the global marketplace is flexible. Even if a hostile Iraq won't sell to us in particular, that fact will shift other sources of oil to us as Iraqi oil floods other countries. We get more Saudi oil, Europe gets more Iraqi oil. We already don't import Iranian oil, and it's not like we're suffering. That just means China sucks up Iranian oil instead of Kuwaiti oil, which then goes to us instead.
You see, it is apparently far more important to protect our (I mean, the world's, the world's) supply of crude than our manufacturing sector. It's okay to import a million tons of crap a day made in a repressive Communist nuclear-armed country aspiring to be the world's next superpower, by people in near-slave-labor conditions, but not okay to buy crude pumped and sold by a foreign oil company. A thousand shipping containers a day can come into our biggest cities from foreign countries with god-knows-what in them, they are only superficially checked by Port Security, and that's not a problem, but a French oil company pumping the crude? Never!
One day, we're going to be in another massive war for our survival, and we're going to do it with virtually zero manufacturing ability. All we'll be able to do is grow a lot of food for the war and market/advertise the war effectively, because everything else will be made in China. But don't worry, that's not a national security issue. Buying French or Russian-pumped oil is.
Reason #5: To keep the dollar aliveWe all know that the dollar is backed by oil. Pretty much all oil bought and sold must be done in dollars, called 'petrodollars'. It is this fact that keeps the dollar solvent when we're 9 trillion dollars in debt. There is a much greater demand for dollars than there would be otherwise, and the entire world basically has a vested interest in keeping the dollar alive and healthy.
But the continued fiscal irresponsibility of the Republicans have made the world nervous about the future of the dollar. Increasingly, our economy is about playing financial games with money. Day trading, stocks and bonds, real estate, investments, and of course the fees for all this wonderful financial management. GM is now a lending company that makes cars as a hobby.
Adding value to natural resources with hard work? Turning raw materials into finish products? Pshaw! That's for wussies! Never mind that the US is following the same decline as other empires like the Spanish, Dutch, and British trading empires in the past few centuries. The rich are getting too wealthy and too numerous, unchecked consumerism, negative savings rates, and weak and incompetent national leadership is preventing decisive corrective action from being taken.
All of this makes worldwide investors nervous about the stability of the US dollar, and they are seeking to divest themselves of petrodollars to petroeuros. Without petrodollars, our currency and debt undergoes what can be politely called an 'adjustment'.
Iraq and Iran were making plans to go to petroeuros. With the specter of an 'adjustment' of the US dollar into fireplace fodder if the petroeuro spreads, the petrodollar had to be protected. And given the choice between invading Iran (mountainous, 90 million people, effective army and air force) or Iraq (see reason #2), you pick Iraq.
Reason #6: To keep Saudi Arabia solventThis idea was floated by Randi Rhodes of Air America fame, and it stuck with me.
It seems that, back in the early part of this decade, the Saudi economy was in the shitter. In the prior 20 years, the annual average in come of a Saudi had fallen by something like 60%. Oil prices were fairly low for most of the 20 years, and the Saudi government was deep in debt. Of course they're not going to tax the royalty and their incomes much, so they borrowed money to stay solvent (sound familiar?)
Anyway, Saudi Arabia, as the center of Islam, also had more than its fair share of religious extremists. Fundamentalist Islamic schools, mosques, etc., and the sects that inhabit them. The fundamentalist were unhappy with the increasing Westernization of the Saudi royalty, who spends months on their multi-million-dollar yachts on the French Riviera, dressed in Western clothing, screwing underwear models, and guzzling wine and liquor. And the fundamentalists were increasingly finding poor, unhappy, angry Saudis to recruit.
With the Saudis increasingly facing the prospect of some sort of social or political revolution, they needed help. Not just because they were in bed with the Bush family, but because Saudi oil output is vital to the world economy. If the Saudis fall into chaos, NOBODY get the oil. The market does not simply adjust, as it would if the Saudis decided not to sell oil to a particular country, but it's simply off the market. <poof> Gone.
And a US invasion of Iraq would solve that problem.
The invasion would, first of all, destabilize the region and drive up oil prices, increasing the cash flow into the country. This would balance the budget, pay off the bonds, and boost the economy, helping to alleviate the social conditions. And it did, as well as making a lot of Republicans rich. According to Randi, the Saudis are now not only in the black, but have repaid their borrowed money as well.
Second, the destabilization of Iraq would, as informed experts knew, lead to Sunni-on-Shia violence as decades of grievances and centuries of religious differences (with a generous sprinkling of tribal conflicts) came to a head over the future government of Iraq. With religious violence afoot as the majority Shia in Iraq try to take assert themselves and Sunnis facing the possibility of some sort of genocide, the majority Sunnis in Saudi Arabia would naturally take up the cause of the minority Sunnis in Iraq. Saudi Sunnis would move north into Iraq to fight Iraqi Shia and relieving the Saudi royal family of the most fundamental of the religious nuts and thus the risk of a revolution.
Now, there are certain side benefits to the invasion. "See, see, we're tough on terror!" is one. Good PR is worth its weight in dead American soldiers.
Two, it makes the government spend a lot of money on the war, which is not collected through taxes but through the issue of Treasure bonds, i.e., borrowing. Now, who owns most the Treasury bonds, and thus the interest earned on them? Why rich people, of course! I think Jim Webb said that 53% of Treasure bonds are held by the top 1% of income earners. That means that 53% of the 400 billion dollars paid a year in interest goes to the top 1%, or about 200 billion dollars. 200 billion dollars spread out among 3 million people is $67,000 per rich person. And, conveniently, interest from Treasury bonds is only taxed at 15% thanks to Bush's tax cuts, so the rich gain an average of about $57,000 a year free and clear. The bottom 99%? Well, we get $673, on average, of which $573 is free and clear. Nice, huh?
Three, all that money spend on the invasions makes is just about impossible to justify non-Republican values, like the social safety net or alternative-energy research. Oh, darn.
Four, it helps keep that pesky peace dividend at bay as new equipment is purchased to replace that which is left smoldering on the battlefield and new projects to counter unforeseen problems have money thrown at them. The military-industrial complex loves that part.
I don't know if the last four reasons are why we went to war, but I do know that they are four reasons to not argue too much against it.
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