Many above either obssess or react hysterically to this: "Putting the American sword to the Chinese oil jugular is part of [the Neo-con] strategy....

There are several obstacles to this analysis. First, competing interests keep the US in Iraq - despite Lind's protests to the contrary. Second, Bush and Rumsfeld aren't driven by the Neo-con's agenda - especially not their Sinophobia.

Third, Lind completely neglects the fundamental fact that global integrating economies are interested more in stability - not disruptive confontation - when it comes to essential resources and world trade. The proportion of the US income derived from trade has more than doubled since 1990, amounting to over 20%. Barring some unforseeable event like 9/11 itself (think: Chinese nuclear attack somewhere), the hope of Neo-con's getting our government to use an "oil weapon" against the Chinese are essentially zero.

Finally, history shows that any oil embargo would be more destructive to the embargoer than the embargoed. Thus, Lind and his groupies here ought to abandon this naive "explanation" for US built Iraqi bases.

My thoughts? Sunni-Shia civil war, more consequentially in Saudi (another place where minority Sunni's oppress Shias) than elsewhere - or else to deal with nuclear blackmail by Iran. Redundances are necessary to deal with either contingency - or worse, both.

Whatever your preference, Lind's thesis drops to the bottom of the barrel of plausibility.

Given the ME propensity towards instability and modern economies dependence upon oil, even without the US, other nations like India, the EU, and China would have had to invent a military to strategically intervene as needed there.

Posted at August 24, 2005 3:08 AM in response to We're in the Middle East To Threaten Asian Oil--Not Protect Ours