Let's Play Devil's Advocate

I want to be clear that I disagree totally with us having done this debacle in Iraq and believe that it will go down as one of the worst foreign policy disasters in American history.

The question I, and most people who oppose this war, have always thought about is why did we do this? Why did we invade Iraq and get involved in the mess we are in? Steven Mufson in the WAPO wrote a great article about this and laid out two theories.

This is the reason that makes the most sense to me (From the article);

As laid out in an April 2003 article in Le Monde Diplomatique, "The war against Saddam is about guaranteeing American hegemony rather than about increasing the profits of Exxon." Yahya Sadowski, an associate professor at the American University of Beirut, argues that "the neo-conservative cabal" had a "grand plan" to ramp up Iraqi production, "flood the world market with Iraqi oil" and drive the price down to $15 a barrel. That would stimulate the U.S. economy, "finally destroy" OPEC, wreck the economies of "rogue states" such as Iran and Venezuela, and "create more opportunities for 'regime change.' "

Let's assume for a minute that this administration had run things in Iraq effectively after the initial invasion. Yes, that is a laughable thought about these people currently in charge. BTW the best line I've ever heard about Bush is that he is the anti-Midas, everything he touches turns to shit. LOL. I think it takes a special talent to fuck up EVERYTHING you touch, but that's a different post for a different day.

Anyway, back to the point. If we had run things correctly after the invasion, been able to impose our will on Iraq, control the oil, get the revenue from the oil sales, AND have cheap oil at home to run our economy and help continue our dominance on the world stage then wouldn't the war have been worth it? Was the investment of a few thousand American lives and a few hundred billion dollars to keep our country on top a small price to pay for the potential return on that investment?

I think this was shortsighted in a couple of ways. If you assume that we did this war for the oil then you can reasonably say that this was detrimental to the goal of helping lessen our addiction to crude. What if we had taken the money we've spent and put it into a "Manhattan Project" for alternative energy sources?

Second, global warming. The actions we took totally discounted global warming. Who cares if we can continue our dominance if the planet is going to be devastated by global warming. Now I don't expect that the idiots in charge thought about either of these things since they don't believe in alternative energy or global warming. But the war for oil certainly stunted any chance to take action on either of these issues.

We'll never know what could have happened if things had been run correctly after the invasion. Would it have made a difference? Would fewer lives have been lost? Even if we hadn't invaded for the oil would we have used the money to find alternative energy sources and eliminate the need for us to try and secure cheap oil? If we have to have cheap oil to continue the American way of life will we look back and realize (Horror) that the Bush administration had a good idea but they just fucked up the execution?

The facts are that oil is currently over $100 a barrel, gas is quickly approaching $4.00 a gallon, we are going to spend at least a trillion dollars on this war, we have NO revenue from the oil in Iraq to offset any of the money we've spent, and Iran and Venezuela are stronger than ever.

Even if the invasion was a good idea, Anti-Midas and his gang of idiots gave it no chance to work.