On 3/14/07, Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 3/13/07, soula avramidis <soulaavramidis2002@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Nothing can be further from the truth.. The US went to war to completely
> > destroy Iraq as a social and political entity, and it did. That is the
> > ultimate victory: pulling out or, staying in, is just a mere detail.
>
> the US went to war to destroy Iraq as a "social entity"? I doubt it.
> Did the US elite want an area in the world which -- like Somalia --
> represents a Hobbesian war of each against all which can harbor al
> Qaeda and spawn new (retail) terrorist movements, along with perhaps
> some unexpected anti-US movement? (For example, the US did not expect
> the Taliban to arise from Afghan chaos.) No, the US power elite wants
> law & order (the preservation of their property and class privileges).
>
> IMHO, the US goals were:
> 1. strategic control over Iraqi oil and over a country with a very
> strategic location in the most oil-rich region of the world.
> 2. destruction of Saddam Hussein, including his opposition to Israel.
> 3. creation of a "friendly" state in that area.
> 4. maybe some others...
I agree with Jim, but we can't totally discount a possibility that,
for at least some of the power elite involved in selling the war to
the American public, (2) trumped everything else and even "to
completely destroy Iraq as a social and political entity" was an
acceptable means for that purpose and still is, for, if Iraq remains a
coherent social and political entity, Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism
(or another ideology equally opposed to Israel) may rise in the
future, though most in Washington probably had more rational economic
and geopolitical goals in mind.
--
Yoshie