Acidus wrote:
It is clear what the Iraq war is about: securing vital oil resources that we need to remain a super power. Human rights and "democracy" are just as worthless of an excuse as Germany saying it invaded Poland because of Polish saboteurs.

Is it? This has been a favorite theory of the left since the start but I have never found it particularly compelling. The logic is:

1. Bush says there is an imminent threat that Saddam will give WMD to Al'Q.
2. Turns out there probably wasn't a significant amount of WMD and the connections between Saddam and Al'Q were tenuous at best.
3. The real reason for the war MUST be [insert my favorite conspiracy theory here].

Obviously, 3 does not follow from 2, regardless of what 3 is. 3 must have its own justification which exists independently from the validity or invalidity of 1.

In fact, I don't think taking over Iraq would have significantly reduced our price for Iraqi oil, if all other things were equal. The primary reason the oil wasn't available is because the international community wasn't buying it from Saddam, because Saddam was a problem. If this was all just a greedy resource grab we could have simply not embargoed him in the first place and the resource would be far more available then it is now. We embargoed him because he was a problem. Ergo, even if we really DID go in there to free up the oil, it was really about Saddam, and not about the oil per say. Were Saddam not a bastard there would have been no need for a "resource grab."

I think 1 is oversimplified. I'm not convinced that the war was justified. However, I'm not convinced it wasn't either. The trouble with the dialog is that no one on the right is willing to accept 2, and everyone on the left is convinced of 3. I think the reality is that 1 was not totally unreasonalbe but not compelling enough to justify a war, and that 3 is totally unreasonable, but because we can't let both theories go we can't really have a national dialog about what the hell we ARE actually doing.

And this has gone on long enough now that it really doesn't matter anymore. The damage is done. We're in there. And frankly, we need to stay engaged until the situation is sustainable. It doesn't matter why we went in the first place. We cannot simply withdraw because we decide we're no longer happy with our original justification.

I think the recent Senate hearing and Bush's statement which was discussed here was orchestrated to put pressure on the Iraqi government to take more responsibility for domestic security. I don't think that after all of this, people in South Carolina are now suddenly wondering whether we ought to be in there, nor do I think the Republicans would be taking such a sentiment seriously if it weren't in their interest to do so. You're going to hear more about how the American people are getting tired of Iraq. You might even see a return of the protests. This is how we're going to negotiate with the Iraqi's. They rightly think its our mess to clean up, but if we're unwilling to do that they have to do it or live in it. They'll do it.

Our next problem will be keeping them from hating us for making them do it.

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