Oil, war and allies a dicey mix

[unhappycamper]

Oil, war and allies a dicey mix
Shaun Carney
July 9, 2007


WHAT goes around comes around, and the latest controversy over the role of oil in the invasion and occupation of Iraq — John Howard and Brendan Nelson said it was part of the mix, then said it sort of wasn't really and Peter Costello maintains it definitely never was — shows what can happen when one country tags along on another nation's war.

Above all else, there are two key reasons why Australia signed up for the 2003 invasion. One is the Prime Minister's justifiable and completely understandable revulsion at the events of September 11, 2001. He was in Washington when the planes hit. He saw the smoke of the burning Pentagon rising in the sky above him. He felt the pain of America's ruling elite and of ordinary Americans, and he wanted to be involved in a long-term response.

The other reason, which in some ways is a subset of the first, is the less reflexive response to September 11 and its consequences for the Australian-American alliance: the Government judged that Australia's relationship with the United States would be damaged, possibly severely, if it did not join George Bush on his great military adventure.

Bush declared soon after the terror attacks that the nations of the world were either with America or against it, and he folded a war on Iraq into that contention. In any event, for the Howard Government the decision to join Bush's coalition of the willing was not difficult to reach.

There are many sad truths about the Iraq folly and in the past few days the Government has been caught on one of them. Essentially, the grounds for taking part have become a free-for-all. What applied at the outset — the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction — was voided within a year, making way for the need to bring freedom to Iraq, and then, when the insurgency intensified, it was to fight terrorism. After that, it was to save Iraq from itself, to halt the decline into civil war.

Little wonder that the mere mention of the protection of energy sources became news not just here but in America, too. After all, the Government has for the past four years treated the rhetoric and principles underpinning its military commitment in Iraq like a mobile sightscreen at a Test match, regularly shifting position depending on the state of play and the available light.


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