Oil is America’s Motive for War

All around the world people ask: what is the real motive for the Bush Administration’s threatened war with Iraq? Is it to curb weapons of mass destruction? Is it more personal, an act of vengeance by a son against the man who attempted to assassinate his father? Is it to defend Israel? Is it to reinvent the Middle East as a more democratic region, as many of the Bush Administration’s leading voices insist? Or is it, as some suspect, so that America can get its hands on Iraqi oil?

The Bush administration has offered a range of justifications for its plans, although with a fairly consistent emphasis on weapons of mass destruction. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz talks about making Iraq the “first Arab democracy.” Many in the Bush Administration argue that aggressive policies toward Iraq can ultimately bring down autocratic governments in the Middle East the same way that the Reagan Administration supposedly brought down the “evil” Soviet empire.

Outside of America, almost nobody buys these arguments. Most believe that oil ranks at the top of America’s list of motives. Short of the US national security archives suddenly falling open, we are unlikely to find a definitive account of the President’s innermost thoughts. Moreover, different US officials certainly have different priorities. President Bush may focus on weapons of mass destruction; Mr. Wolfowitz may target democracy. Others may have their eyes firmly on the prize of Iraqi oil.

A more fruitful question than an inquiry into America’s motives is how the US will act once war comes. Here we don’t have to rely on second-guessing individuals. We can examine America’s behavior in recent history.

Looking at the historical record, it is difficult to believe that the US will give the Middle East a democratic makeover. Today’s Middle East is a construction of the US and Europe. Its despots and monarchs owe their positions to the machinations and connivance of the West. Even if America goes off to war waving the banner of democracy, the results are likely to be less glorious. In the end, this will likely be a war for Iraqi oil.

Throughout the 20th century, Arab self-determination, democracy, and economic reform took a back seat to oil. When the British inveigled Arab chieftains to fight on behalf of the British empire in World War I, the Arabs were not rewarded with sovereignty at the Great War’s end, but with ongoing British and French suzerainty.

Whenever real democracy in the Middle East threatened American control over oil reserves, democracy was jettisoned. Consider the CIA-backed coup against Iranian Prime Minister Mussadegh. In 1951, Mussadegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry, prompting a British boycott the next year and then US- backed intervention (which toppled and jailed the popular Prime Minister) in 1953.

A similarly instructive case is the West’s support for a military crackdown in Algeria after democratic elections in early 1992 threatened to bring the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) to power. When the FIS seemed headed to victory, Algeria’s army stepped in to prevent continuation of the vote. Western governments, led by France but with US backing, gave moral and financial support to Algeria’s generals.

American behavior in former Soviet Central Asia is equally vivid. Many in the Bush Administration point to its work in this region as a showcase for how they will reshape the Middle East. Yet democracy has absolutely nothing to do with American policy in Central Asia, where US oil companies and diplomats trip over each other promoting deals in despotic Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

A good window on postwar US policy in Iraq can be found in key documents written by and for the Bush Administration before September 11, when the analysis of the Middle East was much less infected by today’s fears. Probably the most interesting document is a study entitled “Strategic Energy Policy Challenges of the 21st Century,” produced by the James Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Texas and the Council on Foreign Relations.

The study makes clear two points. First, Iraq is vital to oil flows from the Middle East, as it sits on the second largest reserves in the world. The report agonizes over the fact that for economic security reasons America needs Iraqi oil, but that for military security reasons the US can’t allow Saddam to develop the oil. The implication seems clear: the US needs a new Iraqi regime for its energy security. Democracy is not mentioned anywhere in the study.

This document also provides an interesting glimpse into the preoccupations of officials like Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Both men entered national leadership under President Gerald Ford in 1974, during the Arab oil embargo, which unleashed huge economic shocks that doomed Ford’s presidency. The “Strategic Energy Policy Challenges” study puts enormous weight on the threats of a similar disruption today. The 1970s embargo was evidently a defining moment in the strategic thinking of Messrs. Cheney and Rumsfeld.

The Bush Administration may believe that it is going to war to fight for democracy in the Middle East, but US support for real democracy stands to be an early victim. Sadly, a war fought for oil will be one that further destabilizes international politics and society, and undermines the true security of the US and the world.