Not Oil, but Israel: Stephen J. Sniegoski for The Last Ditch

The most popular argument of the critics of the Iraq war has been that the United States went to war for oil — that is, that the war had nothing to do with combating terrorism. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor before the war, Brendan O'Neill reported that "for many in the antiwar movement, the idea that the Bushies' plan to invade the Gulf to get their greasy hands on more oil has become an article of faith, an unquestionable truth repeated like a mantra." [1] Among those believers is America's preeminent left-wing war critic, Noam Chomsky: "Of course it was Iraq's energy resources. It's not even a question. Iraq's one of the major oil producers in the world. It has the second largest reserves and it's right in the heart of the Gulf's oil-producing region, which U.S. intelligence predicts is going to be two thirds of world resources in coming years." [2]

That goes against what I regard as the fundamental reason for the war: the war was led by neoconservatives and fought in the interests of Israel, at least as Likudniks envision Israel's interests. It is all well-documented, though the neocons imply that Israeli interests coincide with those of the United States. But as I point out in my article on the subject — and this fact is on the public record, too — the original idea for the war was conceived in Israel. Moreover, the war achieved the goal hoped for by the Likudniks — destabilization of the Middle East.