NationStates Jolt Archive

The theory that we invaded Iraq to get oil simply doesn’t make any sense to me. Is this just one of those tinfoil hat conspiracy theories?

I can understand that the whole WMD thing was shallow and that a big reason for going to war is because Saddam was an asshole. I can understand that the neo-cons wanted to play at nation-building and thought they could make a base from which to carry their ideological crusade into the Middle East. What I don’t understand is how the war could possibly have been for oil?

Think about it this way… wars are incredibly expensive.
The amount of money spent invading Iraq and attempting to capture the oil wells would vastly dwarf any possible gains from ‘getting the oil’.

Either two ways of doing this: to put a non-OPEC government in place to maximize production, or to actually put up a colonial government and claim ownership of the oil.

A regime pumping as much as possible and focusing on developing the oil fields would gain a drop of a couple of dollars a barrel in the medium term. Short term you loose production and long-term benefits are negligible as production can be brought up elsewhere (just without quite as much profit). This would maybe save the US economy a few billion in the end. So how do you justify government expenditure in the hundreds of billions for a potential chance at saving the economy a few billion?

Second option would be to setup a colonial government with the aim of extracting as much oil as possible and sending it to the US. This is really into the tinfoil hat area.
The cost of putting in place a shell of a government with the military resources to protect the oil fields and pipelines would be extreme, not even counting the damage done to international relations. Such destabilizations would mean an increase in the cost of oil, counteracting any benefit gained from exploiting the Iraqi fields, and putting at risk other oil fields from being taken by China or any other nation.

Either way, the sheer cost of an invasion is enormous, and any potential benefits gained from the Iraqi oil fields would not compensate for that cost. So just how was the invasion all about getting the oil?

It would have been much better to simply buy the oil – you could get one hell of a lot more oil, and the price per barrel would be significantly lower.

Two theories that make the idea a little more plausable:

1) Hussein being unstable and no friend of the US could simply cut off oil at any time he wanted. Simply "buy the oil" doesn't work if he's not willing to sell it. Installing a friendly regime would lessen that risk

2) you assume the cost of oil is only the cost of oil. The economy is based on oil. A loss of billions of barrels of oil might cost the economy those billions of dollars directly, but indirectly the loss of that oil would effect the industry in such a ways that the ultimate cost to our economy would be far greater than the cost of the war.

Not validating or dismissing the theory either way, but you should consider those two facts.

We didn't go there to "steal their oil." What the United States is interested in is maintaining the free flow of oil out of the Middle east to world markets. The fact is that the region is only important because it has oil. There are all kinds of places in Africa, Asia and South America that are every bit as unstable as the Middle East and we don't send 140,000 troops to try to bring stable democracy to those places because they do not represent profound strategic interest to the rest of the world. It's not just us. It's everybody in the world that is concerned with stability there because they are all in the same predicament. It's just only us that have a stupid and arrogant president who thinks he can force stability down the throats of the Middle East on his terms because he doesn't understand anything about the Middle East.

Oil was only a reason in that Saddam was a threat to stability in a region full of oil. You can argue that there were better ways to deal with him then an all out invasion but claim that the war was part of some "neocon" plot to control the world or other paranoid garbage is completely assinine.

The issue, I would guess, is control, not direct monetary profit.

The theory that we invaded Iraq to get oil simply doesn’t make any sense to me. Is this just one of those tinfoil hat conspiracy theories?

I can understand that the whole WMD thing was shallow and that a big reason for going to war is because Saddam was an asshole. I can understand that the neo-cons wanted to play at nation-building and thought they could make a base from which to carry their ideological crusade into the Middle East. What I don’t understand is how the war could possibly have been for oil?

Think about it this way… wars are incredibly expensive.
The amount of money spent invading Iraq and attempting to capture the oil wells would vastly dwarf any possible gains from ‘getting the oil’.

Either two ways of doing this: to put a non-OPEC government in place to maximize production, or to actually put up a colonial government and claim ownership of the oil.

A regime pumping as much as possible and focusing on developing the oil fields would gain a drop of a couple of dollars a barrel in the medium term. Short term you loose production and long-term benefits are negligible as production can be brought up elsewhere (just without quite as much profit). This would maybe save the US economy a few billion in the end. So how do you justify government expenditure in the hundreds of billions for a potential chance at saving the economy a few billion?

Second option would be to setup a colonial government with the aim of extracting as much oil as possible and sending it to the US. This is really into the tinfoil hat area.
The cost of putting in place a shell of a government with the military resources to protect the oil fields and pipelines would be extreme, not even counting the damage done to international relations. Such destabilizations would mean an increase in the cost of oil, counteracting any benefit gained from exploiting the Iraqi fields, and putting at risk other oil fields from being taken by China or any other nation.

Either way, the sheer cost of an invasion is enormous, and any potential benefits gained from the Iraqi oil fields would not compensate for that cost. So just how was the invasion all about getting the oil?

It would have been much better to simply buy the oil – you could get one hell of a lot more oil, and the price per barrel would be significantly lower.

I completely agree.

Invade iraq = drive up oil prices = highest-ever profits for oil companies.

Also, install a friendly government in iraq, lay the foundation for american preferential treatment when oil becomes scarcer and more expensive.

I think the reasoning goes like this. The Bush administration thought that the war could be done on the cheap and a pro-American government could be installed quickly. Such a government in control of one of the world's biggest supplies of crude could basically destroy OPEC's ability to fix the price of oil by pumping at max capacity when OPEC decides to cut oil exports. If all went as planned the long term benefits to the global and in particular US economy would have more than paid for the war within a few years.

I'm sure it was a consideration in invading, but it certainly was not the only consideration. I think Bush and pals actually thought that removing Saddam would usher in an age of westernization in the middle east that would remove much of the support and a big source of recruits for terrorism.

Well, the war wasn't for oil it was for placing a key strategic ally in an extremely important part of the world. Iraq has a ton of undiscovered and proven oil reserves, and a US-friendly regime in Iraq along with the ones in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait along with our forces already stationed there would combine to give us a very influential position in the region and would enable the US government to influence OPEC even

Also, once oil production peaks nations with a lot of undiscovered oil will become very important; a US-friendly regime in Iraq would give us incredible energy resources as well as significant deposits that could be used to our advantage in the long term.The war wasn't about oil, it was about the influence that oil provides. As a corollary, it had nothing to do with the price of oil or the supply but rather it had to do with long-term strategic planning in regard to energy resources.

China is doing the exact same thing in Africa, signing treaties for resource production and gradually gaining influence over these nations in order to exert more and more pressure on them until they effectively control these nations' resources. Really, it's a new version of the "Great Game" on a scale far more than anyone could have imagined in the past.

we didnt go to war for oil but the oil was part of the mix of underlying motives.

those who would pay for the invasion (the american people) and those who would profit from stealing iraqi oil (big oil men) are 2 different groups. that the price has proven to be ridiculously high doesnt mean that the oilguys didnt HOPE to get it all done on the quick and cheap. it just turned out to be a vain hope.

iraqi oil had been mostly off the market for a long time. having a "free" iraq would allow a great increase of the oil supply and would have brought down the price of oil. that would have been a boon for both the US and world economy. it hasnt happened but it might have been nice.

in the delusional minds of the bush administration, we were going to go into iraq the same way we went into kuwait in '90--100 days and its all done. the iraqi people greet us as liberators. we put in a US-friendly government, the oil flows freely and everyone makes money.

we know NOW that it was just a sick delusion. when they started they actually BELIEVED that shit. what matters isnt the reality but what they went into the war believing.

now we all have to pay for bush's mistake.

Think long term - securing interests for the whole century.

The theory that we invaded Iraq to get oil simply doesn’t make any sense to me. Is this just one of those tinfoil hat conspiracy theories?


No, in the sense of the following article. It was a consideration. Not the consideration.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm