September 21, 2007--

Alan Greenspan was right that Iraq war is "about oil" because it's "about [toppling a terror-supporting, genocidal, totalitarian regime that had spent, and would now be spending, vast] oil [revenues on WMDs].".

According to an interview of Alan Greenspan by Bob Woodward regarding Greenspan's assertion (in his latest book) that the "Iraq war is about oil," Greenspan meant that protecting the free world's access to oil from threats or WMD-blackmail by Saddam Hussein's regime justified toppling Saddam. The entirety of Woodward's article is here), and here are excerpts:

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been "essential" to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Greenspan, who was the country's top voice on monetary policy at the time Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, has refrained from extensive public comment on it until now, but he made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that "the Iraq War is largely about oil." In the interview, he clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy.

"I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in an interview Saturday, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."

He said that in his discussions with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, "I have never heard them basically say, 'We've got to protect the oil supplies of the world,' but that would have been my motive." Greenspan said that he made his economic argument to White House officials and that one lower-level official, whom he declined to identify, told him, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil." Asked if he had made his point to Cheney specifically, Greenspan said yes, then added, "I talked to everybody about that."

Greenspan said he had backed Hussein's ouster, either through war or covert action. "I wasn't arguing for war per se," he said. But "to take [Hussein] out, in my judgment, it was something important for the West to do and essential, but I never saw Plan B" -- an alternative to war.

Indeed, it's manifest to anyone with common sense and a modicum of knowledge of recent history that our motive in toppling Saddam Hussein was not "about [acquiring Iraq's] oil." Rather, in reality-- above and beyond Greenspan's rationale (as an economist wisely fearing totalitarian strangulation of the free-market forces of liberty)-- the war in Iraq is "about [ending a terror-supporting, genocidal, prior-WMD-using totalitarianist's ability to expend vast] oil [revenues on WMDs]." The answer to the "we're not intervening in Darfur" canard is that if the genocidists in Darfur were to have access to, and control of, vast oil revenues, and were to have previously demonstrated a willingness to use such revenues to build WMDs and to use them, we'd need to topple them also. At present, we lack the resources to topple totalitarianists everwhere, and our alleged "allies" in Europe are manifestly unwilling to carry their share of any such burden.

Characterization of President George W. Bush's toppling of Saddam by Bush's critics as a manifestation of mendacity or folly or both requires a half-hindsight rewinding, rewriting and replaying of history. A full-hindsight (i.e., realistic) rewinding, rewriting and replaying of history demonstrates that mendacity and folly are manifest in attacks on Bush rather than in Bush's actions in toppling Saddam.

So, the next time one hears someone say the Iraq war is "about oil," one should remember, it's "about" ending a terror-supporting, genicidal, WMD-using, totalitarian regime from using vast "oil" revenues to build, maintain and improve weapons of mass destruction and threatening to use, or using, them and/or covertly making them available to terrorists for use against us and/or our allies under the Middle-East rubric, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Jim Wrenn, Editor at WrennCom.Com; also Editor at PoliSat.Com.--Jim Wrenn, Editor at WrennCom.Com; also Editor at PoliSat.Com.

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The permanent links to this commentary are:

http://WrennCom.Com/CommentaryArchives/2007/20y07m09d21-01.asp

and

http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowArticle.asp?id=wrennj&date=070921

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