Invading Iraq sure wasn't about oil

National Post ^ | March 19 2002 | George Jonas, National Post

[knighthawk]

Say what you will of Saddam Hussein, he's not stupid. Wicked, yes, but not stupid. Even so, he failed to understand something about the West. Failing to understand it nearly cost him his fiefdom, not to mention his life, 11 years ago. It may yet cost him both.

What Saddam didn't understand then, and probably doesn't understand still, is that the West isn't entirely guided by self-interest.

Iraq's dictator was convinced America wasn't going to interfere with his invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990. That's why he reacted with a smile (noted in the transcript) when U.S. ambassador April Glaspie said to him that "the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."

The misunderstanding wasn't all Ms. Glaspie's fault. It didn't require the ambassador's infelicitous remark: "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait" for Saddam to reach his conclusion. Iraq launched its invasion a mere four days after Saddam's conversation with the Ms. Glaspie on July 25, 1990. No invasion could have been launched in four days if the Bully of Baghdad hadn't fully anticipated (mistakenly as it turned out) a green light from America.

Why, Machiavelli himself would have viewed a green light as a sensible signal. Had U.S. President George Bush Sr. been guided by realpolitik, as Saddam believed him to be, he would have said to Iraq's tyrant: "My friend, why should we quarrel? We have no essential conflict. You live in the Middle East; we don't. You have no territorial ambitions in our part of the world; we have no territorial ambitions in yours. You want to sell oil and we want to buy it. Well, we can buy oil from you as easily as from the Emir of Kuwait.

If the West cared only about oil -- as the West's enemies always maintained it did -- embracing Saddam would have been the logical thing to do. Saddam wasn't trying to hijack the oil supply of the Middle East to feed it to the camels. Oil would be of no use to him unless he could sell it, and he could sell his oil profitably only to the developed industrial democracies. Giving Saddam a free hand in the Gulf region would have been the essence, the veritable Armagnac of realpolitik.

By allying itself with the strongest power in the region, America could have brought about a stability in oil prices and production. Saddam would have appreciated America's unscrupulousness, which was the code he himself lived by. By dumping his Kuwaiti and Saudi allies, Bush Sr. would have won Saddam's respect. Saddam's respect, if coupled with a threat to nuke him if he didn't live up to his bargain, could have ensured a supply of fossil fuel for America and its allies for at least a generation.

There was no reason for Bush Sr. not to prefer Saddam to the theocrats of Tehran or to the hypocritical potentates of Riyadh. Unlike the ayatollahs of Iran or the equally medieval sheiks, emirs and sultans of the oil kingdoms, Saddam was just a straightforward despot, a kind of Mideastern Don Corleone. He wasn't a fanatic, an Islamist, a suicide bomber. He never thought of America as the Great Satan. Far from being a fundamentalist, Saddam was barely Muslim. He had no quarrel with Christendom. By the standards of the region he wasn't even virulently hostile to Israel. He became a champion of the Palestinian cause only as an afterthought.

Before 1990, far from funding terrorists like the treacherous Wahabi sheiks, Saddam had spent years fighting the America-hating ayatollahs of Iran. He had received military assistance from the West. Why would old man Bush suddenly turn on him? All Saddam wanted was to grab the riches of the region, not in order to keep them from America, but to sell them to America in due course.

In fact, Iraq's dictator might have been contemplating his wardrobe for his first ceremonial visit to the White House when America's demand to withdraw from Kuwait or else had reached him. He was probably astounded. Why would America ally itself with the weaker powers in the region against the stronger power? Why would it ally itself with the House of Saud that sponsored terrorists against Israel, America's only friend in the Middle East?

If Kuwait or Saudi Arabia had been Western-style democracies, Bush Sr.'s sympathy might have been explained by a sense of ideological kinship -- but the sheikdoms of the Gulf were no more democratic than Saddam's regime. The emirates were worse in that, they were historical throwbacks. At least Iraq's Ba'athist "socialist" system was a modern rather than a monarchical despotism. So why was President Bush so hostile? Just because Saddam used poison gas against his Kurdish subjects in the north? Or because he oppressed and massacred his Shi'ite countrymen in the south? What were the Kurds and the Shi'ites to America?

Now, 12 years later a lot of bad blood has been spilt. It's probably impossible to turn the clock back, but Saddam might still be hoping. Hoping that perhaps the son will see the light. Perhaps George W. will understand the logic that eluded his father.

Perhaps this week, after Vice-President Dick Cheney has tried and failed to revive an Arab coalition against Iraq, it will finally dawn on Bush Jr. that realpolitik demands a different coalition. It should be America together with Iraq against the Islamic sheikdoms and republics of the Gulf.

Behind the shield of this pragmatic alliance, the tide of puritanical Muslim militancy could be stemmed. Supported by American air power, Saddam's elite Republican Guard could cleanse the region of Islamist forces, whether of the Saudi Wahabi or the Iranian Shi'ite variety. All terrorism, from Hamas to al-Qaeda, could be eradicated, and the chaotic whims of OPEC's ludicrous princelings could be replaced by the tranquility of a well-regulated monopoly ensuring the flow of oil to America under Iraq's wise leader, the one whose life-size picture would grace every public square in the region, Saddam Hussein.

Why, if assured hegemony in the Middle East, Saddam may even acquiesce in the existence of Israel, if it matters so much to Washington. Should the Palestinians balk at such a solution, Saddam would have ways of dealing with them. There's plenty of poison gas left over from the Kurdish reserves.

Oh, if the Americans were only practical! If they were only guided by pure self-interest! If they only wanted oil badly enough!

[knighthawk]

Ping

[dighton]

Hmmm, an interesting and unusual point of view. Good post.

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to and descriptions of the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[Edward Watson]

Dang, that's a pretty good article. I see it makes sense and would be to the US' best interest to ally itself with Iraq against the islamist regimes in the region. Let Saddam have the entire Gulf region - in exchange for steady oil and peace with Israel.

Dang! Why didn't I think of it before?

[Cicero]

Well, classic balance-of-power politics says that it's dangerous to do business with the strongest nations and to help build them up further. Rather, you undermine the strong nations and build up the weaker ones. Kissinger and Machiavelli would agree on that, and so would the ancient Romans.

As it is, Saddam is hard enough to deal with. If he controlled all the oil in the Middle East he would, to say the least, be insufferable.

[Mat_Helm]

Interesting perspective........

[aculeus]

Hmmm, an interesting and unusual point of view. Good post.

Hmmm is right. Personally I think Saddam is too unstable to be trusted. Not to mention his psychotic son.

Or is the author just making the point that the 'it's all about oil' argument is all wet?

[dighton]

IMHO, his main point is: If Americans were really as the Guardianistas and Raimondistas libel us -- ruthless imperialists, etc. -- we'd back Saddam.

[chaosagent]

I detect a little touch of Jonathan Swift in this.

[chaosagent]

I detect a little touch of Jonathan Swift in this.

[DentsRun]

I give up. If it weren't for the oil, why did Bush Sr. attack Iraq?

[mafree]

Appreciate the ping.

[pkpjamestown]

ping!

[A. Pole]

Interesting

[pkpjamestown]

http://idex.janes.com/landforces_data/aapcdetails.shtml

[weikel]

We should be entirely guided by( enlightened of course) self interest if we were we would have made a deal with Hussein we get cheap oil and he wipes out the Wahabbi sect in return he gets to keep the Arabian peninsula. Saddam ain't the enemy its the Saudis.

[weikel]

In fact if it is still possible to make that same deal now we shouldn't hesitate to make it.

[weikel]

He'd still be too weak to fight us if he doublecrossed us( and I maintain that he would be less likely to then the Saudis realpolitik guys are more predictable then religious fanatics like the Sauds) we could destroy him easily.