According to earlier reports by the CIA, terror and suicide bombing is simply blowback or payback against America for her disappointing policies since both the end of the Marshall Plan and the end of the Cold War. We could guess it is all about asking these days, what are the true motives of the US in Iraq, mainly for hegemon and contraband rather than democracy as was said by TE Lawrence after his treacherous discardment after WW1, or a really truly honest endeavour to bring decent democracy to that now ravaged country?

Maybe overblown rhetoric by neo-cons and ex-Israelies in the White House with their Project for the American 21st Century in the 1990s may have scared the daylights out of certain thinkers, but who could blame most historians and writers these days with the added knowledge of the track records in the ME of both the US and the UK over the years? Who could blame such thinkers for staying very very suspicious?

fide mae

This is the second or third war of this century involving the US, that is if you include the War on Terror and accept the rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan as major wars.

Regards

What shallow rhetoric! What would Anthony Loewenstein be saying about American participation in WW1, WWII, South Korea, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia via Nato etc? Can you say it is oil there as well or is it 'power' or 'influence' driven - those nice giveaway lines that are being repeated so often to almost sound plausible.

The problem is that the UN towards we look, is run like a club. The best it could do was to run sanctions on Iraq that with their embargo, led to more deaths per year than is occuring right now. An embargo that gave Sadam photo opportunities with emaciated children while creaming proceeds. There is a gap in the world thanks to the club, and the US is filling it, albeit selectively (and why not?).

The presence or absence of WMDs is totally irrelevant!

So long as the UN is run like a club, respecting sovereignity that allows the likes of Kim Jung Il, Robert Mugabe et al to remain in power, then the selective involvement of the US will continue.

Iraq could become a model of democracy for the Middle East and so it is being vehemently opposed by the likes of Iran. It is a dangerous play but with a worthwhile outcome.

Create a real United Nations, and the US can retreat.

Iraq is a sad expression of people that hold talkfests. Look at Timor, Rwanda, Yugoslavia etc. Four million died in the Congo recently. Where was the UN?

Stop blaming the US for filling the gap. It has made mistakes, Vietnam not excluded, but just for once, cut the rhetoric, and see the bigger picture that includes having a club for a UN. A democracy in Iraq could empower the Muslim world and that's the big play, not oil, not WMDs etc.

INVADING IRAQ WAS JUSTIFIED, BUT..

Remco and others

If countries were liberated, then occupied, on a needs basis then Rwanda and the Congo would have been at the front of the queue. Why weren't they?

Furthermore, talk of liberating a country to install democacy is "lala land". In Iraq's case democracy that has to be imposed at the point of an occupier's gun will evaporate as soon as the occupier leaves.

What made Iraq especially "needy"? As Antony says it has large oil reserves and its next to countries with large oil reserves.

Intelligencee agencies internally has a realistic appreciation that WMD, terrorism and Saddam's human rights record were NOT compelling reasons to invade Iraq.

Oil was the reason but politicians could never admit this. Politicians ordered intelligence agencies (the CIA, MI6 and our own ONA) to fill in the blanks in their speeches to justify the invasion.

Yet getting rid of Saddam to get to the oil probably was justified. It was justified for the world's major developer and consumer of oil to have greater control over its supply. Without more control the US will become increasingly dependent on the whim of Saudi Arabia Royal Family to control the world oil supply and price.

So the occupation of Iraq is for a valid reason. Its just that the US has badly mishandled the occupation in typical American (currently Christian Right) fashion.

For Australia the question is when to get out. Can we leave Iraq in a state of civil war with a clear conscience?

We make such a small contribution to the occupation (other than placing our flag alongside the US) that I think we should get out.

Whether you agree with AL on the issue of the war or not, his point about media is valid. None of our popular media go anywhere near the type of information provided in this article. The question is not so much what we think we know, but what makes us think we know anything at all given our mushroom treatment (kept in the dark and fed ....)?

Why werent other countries like Rwanda Congo and a host of other countries invaded?

Simple, no relevance to the US. That toothless club, the UN leaves a void in the world and that void is being filled by the US and leaving it open to cynical criticisms of "it's oil" or power or whatever.

There is a void and that void is being selective filled. Remove the void, ie. get the UN properly empowered (acknowledging the idealistic impracticality of getting European nations involved) and the US, the de facto and biased agent of the ideal UN, backs off. WMDs, oil, and self interest arguments, disappear.

Replace or empower the Club of Nations and the US will focus on its homefront.

Iraq is a sad case of a residual region made into a sovereign country. A patchwork of disparate groups stitched together by an imperialist country. Left alone after the removal of Sadam, might have created a more natural outcome, bits going to Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. For now, the US is subject to unjustified criticism. Where is France, the Netherlands etc??