[Petrodollar]

I've been reading an excellent new book by Glenn Greewald, A Tragic Legacy: How a Good Vs. Evil Mentaility Destroyed the Bush Presidency (2007).

Surprisingly, in listing all the reasons for a potential US attack on Iran, the issue of Peak Oil was briefly discussed by the book's author: Here's an excerpt from pages 191-192:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]A Confederation of War-Seeking Factions

Why would the president, in the midst of substantial and growing cooperation with the Iranians, suddenly decree Iran in 2002 to be part of an axis of evil, and all but declare Iran an enemy on whom war must inevitably be waged? Numerous and disparate factions surrounding the president each desired, albeit for different reasons and with different motives, hostility and conflict with Iran. Those factions percieve that belligerence toward Iran, rather than a negotiated peace, would promote their respective agendas. And each was able to depict Iran in the Manichean terms that would ensure that the presidnet would see Iran as an implacable foe he was duty-bound to defeat.


....And then there is the related set of concerns: the emerging prospect that the world's demand for oil will outstrip supply, and that with Saudi oil production potentially peaking, the largest strategic reserves will be in Iran, where U.S. access can be ensued only with a pro-American government in place. Oil is a critical resource for a nation's strength, prosperity, and security. It is also finite and becoming scarce. Those who insist that such considerations are irrelevant to foreign policy decisions regarding the most oil-rich region on the planet, and the most oil-rich nations in that region, are advancing claims too frivolous to merit serious consideration. Access to and control over the Middle East's oil supply prevades, to one degree or another, virtually all power struggles within that region.

Such oil-related objectives would likely motivate most mainstream American political leaders, let alone ones such as George Bush and Dick Cheney, who share a background in the oil industry and who retain substantial ties of every type to that industry. There are multiple reasons why the United States continues to sacrifice so much of its resources, its attention, and many of its lives to continued influence and even domination of the Middle East (versus other regions of the world where we appear more or less indifferent). Those who seek to deny that ensuring our influence over the oil supply is a significant factor in why we have the Middle East our predominant national priority are either incredibly naive or indescribably dishonest.