Speaking Of...
columnist: Ben Samuel

Topic: Iraq
Why We fight!

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An independent observation of our interest in the war in Iraq

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by Ben Samuel
(Centrist Libertarian)
Friday, March 21, 2008

An unpublished essay

In the buildup for war in Iraq subsequent to the 9/11 tragedy, an illusive, perhaps ethereal connection was seized upon by the administration to that tragedy with the dictator Saddam Hussein. Yet, if we are to believe former terrorism czar Richard Clark, and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, an agenda for Iraq was well in the cards at the outset of the Bush II administration.

Why would that be the case? There should be no doubt that for political purposes within the United States, Saddam had already occupied such demonic status in the American psyche that Americans would view his removal as a just, if not righteous cause. His usefulness to the Carter and Reagan administrations as a counterweight to the radical regime that emerged in Iran had now been extinguished because of his aggressive foray into Kuwait during the Bush I administration. The war that then ensued served to heighten the poll numbers for that administration, and demolished Hussein's war making capabilities. Its successful conclusion being too swift, the economic affects of administration policies sunk those poll numbers and defeated that president. For his part, Hussein complained that he had signaled his intentions to U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie and there seemed to be no return signal of alarm or concern, and certainly no warning that such a move would trigger so violent a response on the part of America. His reward for that failed initiative was to remain in power with "sanctions" and "No Fly Zones" to keep him contained. Additionally, America looked away as he dealt severely with those America encouraged to rise against him subsequent to "Desert Storm."

Geopolitically, Iraq occupies a desirable location for its proximity to eighty per cent of the world's current and future oil production. Not since the presidency of Jimmy Carter has any American administration put great emphasis on restraining America's appetite for oil, let alone foreign oil. Once Reagan became president we began again encouraging the growth of that appetite. To his credit Carter understood that America's traditional oil suppliers would soon reach a point of depleting production capacity. Perhaps he also realized that industrially emerging nations would soon be growing competitors for consumption of that production. Twenty-five years later it seems we have come to that point.

The Persian Gulf nations (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran Kuwait, et. al.) retain substantial oil reserves. Over the last fifty years, increasing pressure to recover oil from those reserves has brought us to the point where these nations can no longer increase their yearly production. Some of this is attributable to a lag in technology, some to the resort to destructive methods in order to retrieve that oil, and some to the laws of physics. Yet the reserves that exist in the Persian Gulf may pale to those available in the now independent southern republics of the former Soviet Union, places like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. These reserves have barely been tapped and potential remains in these areas for growing world oil production. It should cause us no wonder that Chevron, British Petroleum, and Unocal have been involved with pipeline projects in those countries, and contingents of American forces have been stationed among them to advance American interests. It should also serve to enlighten us as to why the Chinese National Oil Company initiated a competitive bid against Chevron for the acquisition of Unocal, for China sees this region as a major source of supply to feed its substantial economic growth. The propinquity of that region to China is not lost on American interests competitively challenged by China's rapid emergence.

The onset of the twenty-first century sees America occupying a position as a debtor nation, a position it has not held since its own emergence as a nation after its Revolutionary War. Under the guidance of its first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, conditions were established to extinguish that debt and to set the underpinnings for growth and expansion of American wealth. Hamilton sought to promote the development of American manufacture. The ballyhooed arrival of the "Information Age" created an expectation among Americans that economic preeminence could be maintained by becoming the "brain" of an international order reliant on information for production and distribution of goods and services. The aloof quality that assumption engendered degraded the American capacity to manufacture goods, while the American appetite for goods manufactured grew unrestrained. In a subtle dance, former avowed enemies of America now offered her easy credit to absorb the quantities of product they were now able to produce. So much so is now the transition that annual American gross domestic product is less than one-third America's total indebtedness and that indebtedness grows by upward of five per cent per year.

Emerging nations have not sloughed off in the development of their own internal markets. We have before mentioned China, but India as well; Indonesia and Indochina have moved steadily to enhance their economic position. It seems that world strategy, to include Europe and Russia, has moved toward diminishing the relevance of the American markets to their own. This trend would be consistent with the normal behavior of creditors looking to diversify their holdings away from unreliable borrowers. In an attempt to combat this trend a significant devaluation of American currency has already occurred within the last two years, the dollar having lost nearly a quarter of its exchange value against major currencies of other nations, particularly the Euro. Until recently, China pegged its currency to the dollar, allowing for cheap American credit and those low interest mortgages in which we so lavishly indulged. It also allowed for the continued expansion of the balance of payments surplus China enjoyed with its U.S. trading partner. However, American capacity for manufacture has continued to decline and it is not in a position to respond competitively to the benefits of its own currency's devaluation.

Nations historically do not respond well when swamped by their obligations to other nations. This was notably the example of Germany post World War I where the world witnessed the devolution of democracy to National Socialism with its ambition of world conquest. Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi text of his conversation with April Glaspie spoke to the aggressive options nations ensue to assure their dignity in the face of economic exploitation by their neighbors and their allies. The debt morass America has accumulated finds it reliant on the kindness of strangers to maintain living standards to which it has encouraged its people. Such reliance does not sit well with those of us who embody the spirit of rugged individualism. After all how many score of Native Americans did our "rugged individuals" slaughter in pursuit of our "Manifest Destiny?" Having achieved our ocean to ocean vision, ought we to stop there, particularly while we cannot provide for ourselves what it is we need?

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2008 Ben Samuel, all rights reserved.
Published: Friday, March 21, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, March 25, 2008

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