by seahorse » Wed 02 Feb 2005, 00:15:31
Maverick,
First, I'm familiar with the dollar arguments for invading Iraq. I'm also familiar with the PO arguments. I don't think we invaded for any one reason, but a combination of all of them.
I think we invaded for more idealistic reasons, American hedgemony. On the project for New American Century, White Paper, 1999, the neocons state that the U.S. won the cold war and now needs to dominate the world and spread American idealism, basically. Its purpose is to maintain absolute military supremacy and take out any threats to us.
So, as Michael Klare points out in resource wars, the ME has been in American strategic interest since WWII. As William Clark points out in his essays about invading Iraq over the Euro wars, dollar hedgemony is the center piece of American economic dominance, but you can't separate oil from dollars, and you can't separate those two from the ME geographically. Therefore, you can't say that one reason is more important than the other, they are two sides to the same coin.
Further, I don't think you can underestimate the religious aspect of all this. I mean religious in the sense that the PNAC's idealism about "The New American Century" takes on almost a religious fervor, just like the Nazi idealism did. So, my opinion is this Neocon religious fervor is the driving force, and to effectuate American dominance, we have to control the ME militarily to protect our long recognized "strategic" oil interest and our dollar hedgemony, which are one and the same thing. For the same reasons, we will not allow Iran to develop as either an economic or military power in the ME. If this is to be the New American Century, we can't let anyone rise to the level where they could possibly be a threat to us in the ME. Interestingly, in the 1999 PNAC paper, they specifically list Iraq, Iran, and N. Korea as the three threats to American national interest.