Iraq War: Don't Blame Big Oil

Although it has been very fashionable to claim we invaded Iraq for oil, the truth is that it was the Israel Lobby, not the oil lobby, which pushed for war. Unlike pro-Israel strategists who seek to trash and destabilize Israel's many enemies, Big Oil prefers stability which is better for business.

As stressed in three recent books: John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy; James Petras' The Power of Israel in the United States; and Stephen J. Sniegoski's The Transparent Cabal---The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel, it is not the oil companies who are the war-mongers. In fact, it's quite the opposite: oil companies have a history of lobbying to repeal sanctions on so-called rogue states in order to facilitate oil industry investment and development.

Furthermore, the oil companies were not the ones who manipulated the intelligence to trick us into the preemptive unnecessary war with Iraq, whose long-term cost is estimated to be $3 trillion by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. On the other hand, Zionist neocons, who had previously written strategy papers for Israel, such as "A Clean Break" in 1996, advocating preemptive Middle East wars to benefit Israel, formed a network at the highest levels in the Bush administration from which emanated the now-discredited pro-war garbage parroted by Cheney and Bush. These Israel Lobby neocons are ideologically linked to the far-right Israeli Likud Party war-mongers who serve to make the racist apartheid occupation of Palestine permanent. No land for peace.

In contrast, peace is what benefits Big Oil. Indeed, the entire global economy requires stability and peace to achieve its best results. Oil-rich states have long been willing to make a just peace with Israel: the 2002 Saudi Peace Plan, now known as the Arab Peace Plan, was accepted by Saddam Hussein as well as by Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat. Iranian leaders and Hamas leaders have likewise said they would abide by any peace settlement acceptable to the Palestinians.

Such a peace would not only end anti-American terrorism, but would also take the pressure off the requirement for a shotgun approach to our energy crisis. Developing alternative energy sources is important but doing it right requires time and money, currently in short supply. In the meantime, there is abundant Middle East oil and all these countries eager to sell it. Tragically, Israel rejects peace by refusing to relinquish stolen Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese land and therefore hates to see even one penny paid to its enemies for oil.