If Iraq was invaded for oil, would it not have been easier to have invaded Alberta or Venezuela?

Question

Some people try to justify the iraq invasion as being for oil...if so would it not be cheaper to go after oil a bit closer to home and a country less risky to invade?

Be aware my question is an 'of interest' type...I'm in no way suggesting the US should invade anyone for oil....certainly not Alberta!

The_End - um why are you attacking me personally??? I put a topic to debate so no personal attacks please

Ok so before anybody else attacks me personally I'm a well informed person and consume a huge amount of news from around the world. Its interesting the partisan crap that gets thrown back on a person in these posts! Its a question I asked that's all

Answer 1

I by no means wish to insult you in my reply, please keep that in mind.

However, you need to think in a whole different way. You are in this “they have something we need, let’s take it” rut. It’s not like that, it’s all far more Byzantine. Back in 2003, Canada, Venezuela and Iraq were all sovereign nations. But because Iraq is in the Middle East, it is somewhat “less sovereign”.

Everything we do in the Middle East is about oil. Although we have had our own territorial ambitions from time to time, America never sought colonies like the Europeans nations. So why have we been so involved in the Middle East over the last 60 years? And compare our involvement in the Middle East with our lack of involvement in Africa. What do the Arabs have that the Africans lack?

The 1991 Gulf War was a far more “approved” war, by Americans and non-Americans alike. George Bush the Greater even got totalitarian Arab governments to pay for it. The Coalition in 1991 numbered 560,000 men, with a far more diverse make-up than the 2003 Coalition. Yet when then Secretary of State James Baker was asked what the war was about, what did he say? “It’s about oil, oil, oil”. And that’s a Republican. The fear then was Saddam would have invaded Saudi Arabia. Had he been able to control Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, he would have had about 40% of the world’s oil supply under his thumb. None of this is controversial or even arguable.

Why are we in the Middle East now? 9/11? Fine, why did 9/11 happen? Because Bin Laden is an evil *******? Fine, he is and it is my regret that I didn’t get a chance to kill him during my four years of active service in the US military. But there are a lot of evil bastards out there, many of them do not like us. Why did this particular evil ******* plot to kill thousands of Americans? Well, he told us. More than anything else, he wanted American troops out of the Arabian holy lands. Why were we there? To protect Saudi Arabia’s oil field from Saddam.

Yes, it is true that we get most of our oil from Canada, then Mexico and then Venezuela. Saudi Arabia comes in #4. However, even though we do not get the majority of our oil from the Middle East, plenty of other people do; all of Europe, China, and many others. Aside from America, the world does its oil shopping from the Arabs and Persians. And if they can’t get it cheap at their corner store, guess where they are going to go? Then we will find out just how much our neighbors to the north and south really love us. (Then you might actually see us invade them!)

But as I alluded to before it’s not as crude as “let’s steal their oil”. It’s more like, “let’s make sure that Mid East oil keeps pumping, as much as it can pump”. Such a thing is not just done through invasions alone. But you have to understand that this, the War in Iraq, is a neo-conservative war, or at least it was.

What did they see when they saw Iraq? You called it risky. They saw no risk! They saw a secular Arab country with a ruler even his Arab neighbors didn’t like. Even more so, they saw a country that was pumping oil far below capacity, thanks to a decade’s worth of war and sanctions. Add to all of this the assumption that after 1991, overthrowing Saddam would be easy.

Of course, the neo-cons made a few mistakes in their reasoning. Yes, overthrowing Saddam was easy, that’s when the easy ended. They didn’t realize that Iraq was only secular because Saddam made it so. They didn’t realize that while everyone in the region hated Saddam, few liked the idea of seeing American troops march through the greatest city in the ancient Arab world. And they didn’t realize that there would be constant bombings all over the place, never a plus for much of anything, including raising oil production.

So yes, we are in Iraq because of oil. It’s like I said, it’s Byzantine, it’s never directly A to B.

We are in Iraq, in a rather poor attempt, to establish democracy and for greater stability in the overall region…..which thus increases and secures the production of oil.

We defended many of the Gulf States from Saddam, to stop him from invading…..and thus not letting him control too much of the oil in the region.

We sided with both Iraq and Iran in the Iran-Iraq War, sometimes at the same time, so one country would not conquer the other…..and thus gain control of the other’s oil.

We helped to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected and rather secular President Mohammad Mosadeq in the 1950’s, because we though he would be susceptible to Soviet influence…..and thus might provide a boost to the USSR.


I’m not judging the right or wrong of all of this, this isn’t about morality. It’s about reality. If not for the oil, why the hell else have we cared so much about the region for so long?

Answer 2

They are already stealing Alberta's oil reserves and sites which therefore they don't have to invade, but invading a country for its oil is quite hard to do especially when the congress voted for the troops to come home from Iraq. Even there are still a whole lot more oil there than in Alberta. If it was about oil would you think they would have had stayed there for a whole lot longer since anti-Americans are still attacking them? There would have been proof of oil being shipped back to America to be process and resold to consumers too.

Answer 3

Because the Bush administration would have found it much harder to contrive a case for war against those countries. Iraq made an ideal target because we had been to war with them before and Saddam had all sorts of things on his record Bush could hype up. Also, with an Arab Muslim country, Bush could capitalize on post-9/11 hysteria by flatly lying that Saddam was involved with al-Qaeda.

Answer 4

This warfare isn't somewhat a lot the oil yet is likewise about warfare for the sake of warfare, it extremely is a rewarding company in itself. If Venezuela became a large danger to the US, i do not imagine the US would hesitate to attack. In Iraq, there became an hazard to make a lot of money with warfare and oil and characteristic the backing of the inhabitants to pass and kick Arab ***.

Answer 5

You wrote...
"Be aware my question is an 'of interest' type...I'm in no way suggesting the US should invade anyone for oil....certainly not Alberta!"


You just answered part of your question. Bush could never convince Americans to let him invade Alberta or Venezuela.

It would be a dark day indeed when American's hate Canada enough to support a war, and in 2003 Venezuela wasn't the pain in America's side that it is today.

Bush didn't even get full support for the Iraq War in the Senate (dozens of democrats voted against the war, compared with only 2 senators who voted against the Vietnam War at the mid-60s). And Saddam Hussein was the second most hated man in the world at that time (after Bin Laden). By contrast Canada's Prime Minister John Chretien was only hated by Canadians.

Another reason why Bush didn't invade Alberta is because under NAFTA the US gets relatively cheap oil from Canada. I would have to do some research on Venezuela, perhaps some of their oil was sold to the U.S. in 2002-2003. At the very least they were selling their oil to South American countries, which reduces world demand for oil. Iraq had an oil program and was selling to other countries (Russia?) but not the U.S. Furthermore, the Iraq oil program wasn't as advanced as it could have been. By invading Iraq, Bush may have thought that U.S. companies like Halliburton would be able to get at more oil than Hussein had.

Furthermore, Iraq is on the other side of the world. Bush may appear dumb (and may in fact be dumb) but I'm sure he knew the problems with fighting a war with a neigbouring country or a country which could get the support of people in the whole of South America, including Mexico (imagine if Mexicans were crossing the boarder not to get work, but to get revenge for the illegal occupation of Venezuela?).

Bush has made it clear that he prefers fighting on the other side of the world. He often says it is better to fight the enemy over there than to fight them over here.

To sum up, Iraq had the second largest supply of easy access oil but the U.S. wasn't getting any of it and Iraq's oil industry was probably about as bad as Iraq's other industries under Saddam (though everything is much worse now). Alberta by contrast as lots of oil, but most of it is in tar sands, very difficult to extract. Also Iraq is far away, and most Arabs can't get anywhere near America. 9/11 was a horrible exception to the rule (and had nothing to do with Iraq, as it pre-dated the war by a year and a half). There has yet to be an attack on U.S. soil in retaliation for the War in Iraq (and I hope there never is such an attack, one 9/11 is too much).

However, I must point out that even though there were reasons for Bush to invade Iraq for it's oil as opposed to other countries, the accussation that Bush invaded Iraq for it's oil is hard to believe. Bush has a close relationship with the Saudi's. If he opened up the oil fields of Iraq to Western development, the Saudi's would suffer and would blame Bush. Perhaps Bush invaded because he knew there would be destruction and no one would get their hands on Iraq's oil, thus increasing world-wide demand for oil and in the process pushing up the price and making the oil companies who supported Bush very rich in the process. But even this doesn't make sense...

I think Bush invaded Iraq because his father had tried, and failed. Bush wanted to prove he was better than his father.

Answer 6

The answer is simple. Iraq will become the base of operations for furthering the "b*llsh*t war on terrorism". Where is the oil going to come from to invade Iran and Syria? From Alberta!?! The zionists need control of Iraq's oil to further their sick minded conquests. That would be the Ashkenazi trash running the current US admin. Do some research and learn something other than cnn worthless propaganda. Thank you and wake up soon!

Answer 7

Good point but it will be lost on many that fear the call of duty. War is terrible, the price that a nation pays to remain sovereign; we have lost that knowledge and it is very sad. If anyone has ever had to face a bully at school, at work, in public or private they know that running will ultimately be your undoing. This is a lesson some of us learn from childhood with the cost of a bloody nose or, if we choose to run, a damaged spirit. Islam, as it is being used by the Theocracies in the Middle East, is a terrible religion. The followers are being used far worse than the American public has every been used by our leaders. I don't believe everything that comes out of the White House but I do believe that these people are out to destroy any resistance to their world domination. We fight now and win or we let our children fight with another 30 years of a continually weakening country.

Answer 8

Alberta is already under western control. Venezuela is on the target list for "regime change" right behind Iran. Do some reading besides on Faux News.

Answer 9

Funny you should mention Alberta, This whole Iraq invasion is about making oil expensive enough to make Shale Oil workable.

Answer 10

Yeah If Bush thinks he can invade Alberta or Venezuela for oil he is delusional For one, Albertans would not stand for it, and if he dared to enter Venezuela, Chavez is looking for a reason to kick his... Go ahead Bush, make Chavez's day