MJ.

It's ok that you posted your draft. Please just edit it instead of deleting it as we would lose PsuedoCyAnts excellent post on the subject.

It's important to understand the different parts of the petroleum sector in order to get the big picture. Usually, they are lumped together which distorts the understanding of who the actual players are. Those who actually own the rights to oil reserves are known as the "upstream" portion of the industry. Those aligned with Cheney et al are the "midstream/downstream" actors.

The upstream boys were NOT in favor of the Iraq adventure; Chalabi endeavored to entice their support with promises of future contracts but was unsucessful. No other group knows more about the ME than these folks; their decades of hands-on experience favors stability and cutting deals with whomever. (A long-time DC petroleum lobbyist poster once told me that they paid protection money to Osama bin Laden in order to do unmolested bidness in the region).

As I've said over and over, the Israelis were not pushing for an attack on Iraq; their self-appointed American champions were, in the belief that the way to Tehran led through Baghdad. Iran was and still is the primary target. This is not to say that Sharon didn't help out in the efforts, he did. Much of the distorted intel on Saddam's bio/chem and missile capabilities was forwarded to the adminstration's prime movers then circulated to our coaltion partners to become part of the "everybody thought Saddam had WMDs" mantra. It's important to note that the info on the Israeli contribution to building the casus belli has come from Israeli, not American, sources.

Reminds me that one of the biggest war cheerleaders, Andrew Sullivan, now pushes the neocons=Israel narrative. Guess those crafty fellas over at the Israel Lobby fooled Sullivan.

When I read this along with the Weiss piece, I had around a dozen other plausible factors that contributed to the US decision to invade Iraq. But people will believe what they want to believe - it's not an argument worth having. Pretty depressing, in fact.

I'll comment. Professor Cole lives on planet earth. What Land of Fable do you hail from? You took one paragraph out of a two page excerpt from Professor Juan Cole's "Engaging the Muslim world" published at Salon on March 17, 2009, and didn't even have the guts to post a URL for it.. Then you yanked that completely out of context, so it would fit in your misportrayal of what he wrote, but even that was not enough distortion for you. Additionally, you had to go and intimate that the 2006 Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon had something to do with Hizbullah launching Katyusha rockets into Israel, instead of what really precipitated the warfare: two asleep at the wheel Israeli soldiers, who were captured by Hizbullah soldiers on a cross border incursion, but that would not justify your assertion that Hizbullah somehow should be viewed as equals with Israel on the War Criminal scale.

In response to Israel's relentless attacks in Lebanon, Hizbullah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, on Sunday showed only cool nerve, determined commitment and unwavering resolve. This only goes to show that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's handling of what could have been a confined crisis is doing nothing to deter Hizbullah, and has only succeeded in pushing the entire region closer to an all-out war. Instead of addressing the root causes of the regional conflict, the Israeli premier is responding to a crisis with unprecedented escalation. Olmert's - and Washington's - line is that Israel is defending itself in Gaza and in Lebanon, but we have seen that each disproportionate act of "self-defense" amounts to a provocation that only puts more and more Arab - and Israeli - lives at risk.
[. . .]
The Israelis do have a right to "defend themselves," but defense cannot be achieved through indiscriminate warfare. Surely, there must be a more effective way to protect the lives of Israeli citizens, one that will guarantee a long-term peace instead of a short-term victory. The best way would be to cut this region's Gordian Knot and conclude Arab-Israeli conflicts through comprehensive peace deals. But instead of doing that, the Israelis are drawing the knot even tighter through escalation. In doing so, they are leaving the entire world entangled in a cyclical pattern of violence in which no city - from Gaza and Beirut to Haifa, Washington, New York and beyond- will be safe from retribution.

Editorial, "Israel's action threatens to reopen moral vacuum of war years", The Daily Star, July 17, 2006

The United States and Israel have initially agreed to wait one week, while the pounding of Hezbollah targets continues, before seeking a buffer zone and an international force in southern Lebanon, The New York Times said Wednesday.
[. . .]
US and American officials told the daily that the Israeli-US consensus called for another week of pounding Hezbollah targets to downgrade the militant's group's military capabilities.

Agence France Presse (AFP), "US, Israel agree to wait before world steps in Lebanon: report", The Daily Star, July 19, 2006

Israel switched gears in its military campaign against Lebanon Monday and Tuesday, launching a series of debilitating air strikes against privately owned factories throughout the country and dealing a devastating blow to an economy already paralyzed by a week of hits on residential areas and crucial infrastructure.

The production facilities of at least five companies in key industrial sectors - including the country's largest dairy farm, Liban Lait; a paper mill; a packaging firm and a pharmaceutical plant - have been disabled or completely destroyed. Industry insiders say the losses will cripple the economy for decades to come.

Lysandra Ohrstrom, "Latest targets of air blitz: milk and medicine", The Daily Star, July 19, 2006

At least 55 civilians were killed and scores wounded in a series of deadly Israeli raids across Lebanon Wednesday in the deadliest day since the bombardment began one week ago.

A total of 310 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and hundreds injured since the start of Israel's offensive in Lebanon.
[. . .]
Israeli forces have also been targeting trucks in various parts of Lebanese regions since the Jewish state launched a massive offensive after the Lebanese Shiite militant Hezbollah group captured two soldiers last Wednesday.

Jihad Siqlawi-AFP, "55 killed in deadliest day of Israeli raids on Lebanon", The Daily Star, July 19, 2006

From this hill village in the south of the country, I am watching the clouds of brown and black smoke rising from its latest disaster in the Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil: up to 13 Israeli soldiers dead, and others surrounded, after a devastating ambush by Hizbollah guerrillas in what was supposed to be a successful Israeli military advance against a "terrorist centre" .

To my left smoke rises too, over the town of Khiam, where a smashed United Nations outpost remains the only memorial to the four UN soldiers - most of them decapitated by an American-made missile on Tuesday - killed by the Israeli air force.

Indian soldiers of the UN army in southern Lebanon, visibly moved by the horror of bringing their Canadian, Fijian, Chinese and Austrian comrades back in at least 20 pieces from the clearly marked UN post next to Khiam prison, left their remains at Marjayoun hospital yesterday.

In past years, I have spent hours with their comrades in this UN position, which is clearly marked in white and blue paint, with the UN's pale blue flag opposite the Israeli frontier. Their duty was to report on all they saw: the ruthless Hizbollah missile fire out of Khiam and the brutal Israeli response against the civilians of Lebanon.

Is this why they had to die, after being targeted by the Israelis for eight hours, their officers pleading to the Israeli Defense Forces that they cease fire? An American-made Israeli helicopter saw to that.

In Bint Jbeil, meanwhile, another bloodbath was taking place. Claiming to " control" this southern Lebanese town, the Israelis chose to walk into a Hizbollah trap. The moment they reached the deserted marketplace, they were ambushed from three sides, their soldiers falling to the ground under sustained rifle fire. The remaining Israeli troops - surrounded by the "terrorists" they were supposed to liquidate - desperately appealed for help, but an Israeli Merkava tank and other vehicles sent to help them were also attacked and set on fire. Up to 17 Israeli soldiers may have died so far in this disastrous operation.

The battle for southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but, from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small, silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison, where the Hizbollah are still holding out; beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillsides and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.

It was not meant to be like this, 15 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of southern Lebanon, clearly visible to the naked eye, white contrails that thump into Israeli's hillsides and border towns.

So is it frustration or revenge that keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours two days ago, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside, and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatiyeh.

The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished.

And how come - since this now obsesses the humanitarian organizations working in Lebanon - that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the three wounded inside. All the crews were injured - one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck - but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pious use the cross as their aiming point?

Robert Fisk, "A Warning to Israel - Smoke Signals from the Battle of Bint Jbeil", Counter Punch, July 28, 2006

Israeli warplanes seeking to destroy Hezbollah rocket launchers blasted a group of houses in a southern Lebanese village Sunday, killing more than 50 people, most of them women and children, according to Lebanese officials and on-scene interviews by Lebanese television reporters.
[. . .]
The village that was hit, Qana, lies about 15 miles inland from Tyre, in the rocky border hills where Hezbollah, a militant Shiite Muslim movement, has earned widespread support among the largely Shiite population. Qana was the site of another mass killing of 106 civilians by Israeli missile fire 10 years ago -- that one at a U.N. observer post -- during an earlier round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

In response to reports about the strike on Qana, a spokeswoman for Israel's military said the target was a site used to launch rockets into Israel and blamed the deaths on Hezbollah.

Edward Cody, Robin Wright and Jonathan Finer, "At Least 50 Killed in Israeli Air Strike", Washington Post, July 30, 2006

American political leaders watched with alarm during the past week as the Hezbollah militia laid siege to the U.S.-backed Lebanese government, but few would acknowledge publicly what most analysts and politicians here say is obvious: American policy may bear much of the blame.

Many in Beirut say that U.S. failure to stop Israel's onslaught against Hezbollah last summer crippled the Lebanese government - a U.S. ally - while strengthening Hezbollah - a U.S. enemy. That created an environment in which the Shiite Muslim militia could call for overthrowing Sunni Muslim Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and his Cabinet.

"Hezbollah has more support in the population now because they are the `victorious resistance,'" Cabinet member Ahmed Fatfat said. "And it weakened the government because we did not get any concessions ... the last war was a disaster for Lebanon and the image of the United States."
[. . .]
The fighting began in July when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, an act that began weeks of thunderous Israeli bombing and artillery barrages - often using munitions bought from U.S. suppliers - that killed at least 1,000 Lebanese, mostly civilians. Hezbollah answered by launching hundreds of rockets into Israel.

Saniora pleaded with American officials to intervene, but for weeks Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others said there first must be a "durable solution," meaning primarily that Hezbollah had to be contained and then disarmed.

As the fighting stretched on for more than a month and the Bush administration didn't intervene, Saniora looked ineffectual, a nearly unforgivable sin in a region in which military force and political strength are often synonymous.
[. . .]
Hezbollah officials have harped on the Lebanese government's reliance on U.S. help at a time when American policy makers weren't putting pressure on Israel to stop its aerial bombardment.

"It's no coincidence that all those who supported Israel in the war are today supporting what remains of this falling government," Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday night via video feed to a cheering crowd of thousands.

"Does any Lebanese accept ... supporting a government that George Bush and (Israeli Prime Minister) Ehud Olmert support?" he asked.

The sea of men, women and children booed and screamed for the government's downfall.

Asked for comment, a representative at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut referred a McClatchy reporter to remarks by Rice last summer in which she said any peace deal had to ensure that Lebanon didn't return to its "status quo," again meaning that Hezbollah must be brought under control.

But Hezbollah now appears more in control than ever.

Tom Lasseter, "Analysts: U.S. at root of effort to topple Lebanese government", McClatchy Washington Bureau, December 07, 2006