TPM Reader JR writes …
Re your argument that the quest for oil is a parsimonious explanation for the Iraq war. I have long doubted this proposition. Big Oil may be venal in its pursuit of profit, but it has an intimate knowledge of non-western political structures, and it’s far from stupid. These interests would have known from the start that a cobbled together, post-colonial state like Iraq couldn’t be invaded without catstrophic consequences. This set me wondering, though. I never did come across any substantial report on what Big Oil actually thought as this loony-tunes adventure popped up in the night. I don’t mean the paid mouth-pieces but the power managers within the companies – those advised by anthropologists, political scientists, and other experts who actually have a clue about the workings of the real world.
I think this gets at one of the central confusions of this debate. When you say it’s about controlling the oil, that’s not the same as saying that the oil companies themselves — ExxonMobil, Shell, etc. — want to own the oil in the ground or want more generous concessions from the governments. They probably do. But I don’t think this is what that’s about. The oil companies, in case you haven’t noticed, make a decent amount of money under the current system of working with the local oligarchies and kleptocracies in the countries in question.
This is about the US controlling the region itself, having troops on the ground and structures in place so that none of the nominal governments in the region can act on their own without US assent. That’s a whole different question than which companies have the right to pump the stuff out of the ground.
