The Iraq War - Incompetence not Cunning

Left-wing critics of the war in Iraq, such as Noam Chomsky, have criticised the Bush administration for being ruthless and Machiavellian in its decision to go to war. They argue that Bush's goal was to drive down global oil prices by capturing Iraq's oil fields and forcing the country to increase its oil exports. Eventually, this would allow the U.S to control most of the world's accessible oil and give it an unassailable economic advantage over competitors like China for many decades.

While I agree that securing Iraqi oil and increasing the U.S presence in the Middle-East were the primary reasons for American involvement, I think the Bush administration was far from ruthlessly calculating in its decision to go to war and in its conduct of the campaign. In going to war without U.N support, Bush has shown himself to be naively optimistic. Since his advisers had no plan for the reconstruction of Iraq they thought it would be relatively easy to create a favourable democratic regime and get oil steadily flowing again.

However, after three years oil prices have increased significantly while oil flows are still below pre-war levels. Clearly the Bush administration has underestimated the difficulty of reconstructing the Iraqi State and protecting oil installations from sabotage.

In the First Gulf War there was a clearly thought out rationale for intervention- stopping Iraq from capturing foreign oil supplies and then using increased oil prices to fund military expansionism. Since the U.S, and U.S culture is widely hated in the Middle East, it is only sensible for America to intervene militarily when its Allies are actually attacked, or if global oil supplies are disrupted on a massive scale due to military unrest. Since the costs of military intervention are so large, intervention can only be justified from a self-interest pespective when there is a truly serious threat to U.S interests.

The neoconservative philosophy of pre-emptive attack and regime change is wishful fantasy, not realipolitik. The world is too complex and too disfunctional to be remodelled in America's image.

Bush made a serious mistake in deciding to give U.K and U.S companies public preference for reconstruction contracts. This has only served to further alienate the Europeans and increase anti-American feeling in the Middle-East. If Bush were a cold, calculating pragmatist he wouldn't make such an obvious blunder as this.

The United States has only limited experience policing fractured states and its military is mainly designed for blitzreig type operations. American army equipment tends to lack durability and U.S tanks and planes are ludicrously expensive to run. Countries like France are probably superior to the U.S in occupation operations. Hence, the Americans would have been wise to try and get countries like France involved in the reconstruction process.

With the U.S occupation of Iraq now causing increasing problems with Iran, the original 'Machiavellian' goal of cheap, secure oil, now looks even more utopian.

-For some spectical, conservative opinions on the war in Iraq check out the American Conservative website.