I would argue oil was also secondary. The primary reason was to make an example out of a country that was becoming a little too independent. It was supposed to be the first domino in a longer line of countries in the region left over from the cold war that were not yet aligned with the US (or at least not sufficiently integrated into the neoliberal hegemonic world order) and needed their governments toppled one way or another. The US wanted to turn the entire Middle East into obedient client states.
I mean, Iraq was an ally of the USA against Iran to the point of spending 8 years engaging in a proxy war for the USA against Iran that killed something like 1.2 million people combined.
The US doesn't have allies. It uses countries and proxies as long as they are useful and then it discards them.
Yes the US and Europe had given all kinds of weapons to Saddam, including chemical weapons, to use against Iran. But they eventually turned on him, just like they turned on their puppet narcodictator Noriega in Panama.
One reason for this was that it was no longer as convenient for the US to have puppet military dictators in the post-Soviet period. They became too much of a PR liability and the MO of the US changed to doing color revolutions to install ostensible "liberal democracies" which were just as easy to control through NED, USAID, etc. but allowed the West to maintain a "cleaner" image.
Another reason was that Saddam had been in power for so long that he was turning more nationalistic and began to show too much independence for Washington's liking. The last straw was when he wanted to start selling oil in Euros rather than dollars, but they wanted to get rid of him long before that.
I'm sorry if my response came across as pedantic. It wasn't my intention to "win" anything, i only wanted to introduce some nuance into this discussion and bring up a few additional things to think about.
Its just the difference between how you talk to your own friends or close coworkers and how you'd talk when you're around somebody else's friends or a different set of workers. Being a bit more polite, more clear in communicating a bit more thoughtful about how comments might be (mis)understood to reduce potential friction between two different social groups.
But WHY do they care so much about having influence over the middle east? what are they after? what do they want to do with this influence and this access to the economies of the middle east? sure to some extent they seek power for its own sake, and also to some extent they sought to destroy the country so their corporations had a new market to do in as the pleased, but oil is the biggest resource in the middle east its the most important export for almost all middle east countries, and it is also the backing for the american dollar and by extension americas entire monetary imperialist system, they want power in the middle east because of oil.
America is one of the largest oil producing states. The need isn’t for raw oil for oils sake either. The neoliberal project in the middle east is about destabilization, without Western interference peoples in this region geographically and economically have the potential to become global power players. Gotta interrupt that as soon as possible in as complete a way as possible. Constant war and attempted regime changes to align a region completely with the West.
The petrostate and petro dollar are tools of subjugation to empire, that’s the goal. Not the oil.
Saddam's Iraq was the enemy of Israel. There is too much emphasis on the Israel lobby in this video. This makes sense Steve and John focused on the Israel lobby, but the US has more lobbyist than just Israel.
Consider, the Saudis allowed the US military to stage the invasion from within their own borders. Being power hungry, therefore money hungry, Saddam invaded Kuwait under the pretext of territorial claims. He incurred a lot of debt and his military needed to be funded after the failure in the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam staged an assassination plot against Bush Sr. It is reasonable to think that the Saudis had in interest in removing a hostile neighbor, not just Israel. Certainly, Kuwait was onboard.
Then you must consider that the Persian Gulf and Arabia are strategic oil reserves for the world with a high concentration of oil and natural gas output. A possible belligerent running amok in the region was something that would not be tolerated.
When you consider how much of the elites from various countries wanted Saddam removed, it was a calculated move by George W. Bush Junior to permanently remove Saddam and the Ba'ath Party from Iraq. It was a combination of inputs from various world actors, not just one. George W. Bush had a nation-building ideology on top of it to remake the world in America's image. In his view, it was a reasonable and noble idea, even if the public did not support it.
There is too much emphasis on the Israel lobby in this video.
It certainly wasn't the sole or even the main factor, but the Zionist lobby definitely wanted the invasion and pushed for it hard. Iraq was a big obstacle to Zionist expansion plans in the region, just like Syria is today.
Saddam invaded Kuwait under the pretext of territorial claims.
The territorial claims are not a pretext, Kuwait was a province of Iraq that was split off by the British who made it their colonial bridgehead in the Gulf in order to better control the region and gain access to its resources. However that wasn't the main reason why Saddam invaded Kuwait.
The reason was primarily economical and had to do with Kuwait slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields effectively stealing their oil. Kuwait, having essentially been transfered from being a British protectorate to a US one, did this with US encouragement and support, implicit promises to protect them in case of conflict.
Meanwhile however the US was also telling Iraq through back channels that they would not intervene in case of a conflict with Kuwait, emboldening them to invade so the US could have a pretext to bomb and sanction them.
Saddam staged an assassination plot against Bush Sr.
This was never proven. In fact it is more likely that the whole thing was staged by elements in the US deep state (CIA) to push the US government over the edge in their decision to take out Saddam.
A possible belligerent running amok in the region was something that would not be tolerated.
So the US became the belligerent running amok instead? You are implying that the imperialists were interested in preserving the stability of the region but that is actually the exact opposite of what they have always wanted. They benefit from conflict and instability in key geographical locations like the Middle East. They purposely created the conditions for the rise of ISIS, covertly armed and funded them, and then launched the dirty war on Syria.
Keeping the region in chaos halts Eurasian economic integration and regional economic development (for example: multiple pipeline projects that were similarly threatening to US geopolitical interests as Nordstream was were put on ice or permanently canceled as a result of these wars), leaving not just the region itself but the entire continent more vulnerable to neo-colonial exploitation.
As boring as it sounds, the illegal Invasion of Iraq was about a basket of several issues but all lead to the advance of the American imperialist machine.
Mearsheimer is very much an imperialist and a believer in the US hegemony. However, his analysis is generally lucid. We don't have to agree with his ideals and biases, but I think that his understanding of the geopolitical situation is very much worth considering.
I agree. It's always important to consume media critically.
Understanding bias, and understanding that just because someone makes good points on one topic doesn't mean they can't have garbage takes on many others, is important. But we shouldn't completely close ourselves off to every media source except those that we already agree with 100%.
I am happy to see that Mearsheimer is getting called out on his imperialism apologia and pro-US hegemony bullshit even in the comments of this video, whose audience is most certainly not a majority Marxist one. Even non-Marxists can see that his kind of "realists" are only "realistic" about the Russia conflict because they want to pivot to China instead.
Exactly, it's vital to comprehend the thought processes and origins of people's viewpoints. As long as their arguments are genuine and well-informed, it is valuable to consider such perspectives. This process not only enhances your own understanding by requiring you to formulate solid counter-arguments against opposing views, but also prevents the creation of echo chambers where people simply reinforce each other's preconceived notions.
When we disagree with people like Mearsheimer we should be able to clearly articulate our own position, and the root of our disagreement.
It doesn't hurt to clarify. Not everyone is at the same stage of development and might be misslead because Mearsheimer "realist" views are more eloquent than your average lib.
Of course. It's good to clarify the ideological orientation of a piece of geopolitical analysis so that we know how to contextualize it and understand where its strengths and weaknesses lie based on the biases of the source. The article you linked is very good and all the points it makes are absolutely correct.
I think most of us here would agree that outside of his analysis of the Ukraine conflict (which for someone with his popularity and reach in western geopolitical circles is decent, though woefully incomplete - he never talks about the Nazi problem in Ukraine and the shelling of the Donbass for instance!) Mearsheimer is not that impressive of an analyst.
Basically it looks like decoupling is continuing apace.
The US is in a spiral here and I don't see any way it stops and there's a feedback effect on China whether they like it or not. This will not help China, it will slow China's progress somewhat. It will hurt the western proletariat.
Basically the more they do this, the more China has to take actions to secure their own ability to do things by investing in domestic manufacturing. The more they do that, the more the hawks in the US point to it as a threat that China is going to do that to industry x soon as well (despite the fact China only does this in response to these kinds of moves) and uses it to justify more decoupling in yet another industry. China has to keep pace with this and eventually will probably start guessing industries the US is going to do this to next (as you can't spin things up in a day you have to) which adds further ammo to the deranged borger-imperialists idea that they have to have "clean" (free from China) supply chains.
In practice of course they can't entirely eliminate China from the supply chains but they know that, it's just banter from the more ignorant politicians but the point all along is to secure the heights of technology. So sure China can produce precursors to advanced medical drugs and such which are laundered through Vietnam and drive up prices in the west BUT China cannot be allowed to directly export the drugs, to enter into partnerships with US or European companies in any way that gives them and not the west the advantage, they can't be allowed to get graduates from top university programs in the US and so on.
And they've done this with high technology, with AI, with green energy, with social media, and now this.
In other words, doubters be banished, this is full cold war 2.0, the sanctions, the blockade. There will be trade of course, more than between the US and USSR but the US will seek to taper even that and shift resources to India, etc this and next decade. Unfortunately the US likely has enough plundered loot and momentum to see at least some of this plan through and cause horrible problems for the global south and annoyances and growing pains, stunting to China for at least the foreseeable future, into next decade I'd say.
What's interesting is this is being done at the west's pace. It is not China calling the shots. The west is being cautious, acting slowly, methodically, prying away one industry at a time rather than passing blanket bans and making it known to increasing amounts of businesses in various sectors that it's not safe to invest or do business in China because you could be cut off any time by these kinds of things. This is designed to have a chilling effect on anyone involved in anything more advanced than making clothing or McDonalds meals toys there.
China doesn't want to provoke the west for several reasons. One being I think they want this process to happen as slow as possible so they can take maximum advantage of what trade they have until the last moment. The other being delaying war which they don't want but the US is dead set on. Sadly by doing this they hand US the power to act freely and without any caution or consideration to Chinese retaliation. There are definitely arguments to be made for China trying to gut-punch the US economy in retaliation for these sanctions. Which yes would spur more and more quickly but would cause a lot of short-term pain and who knows could even get enough bourgeoisie off the side-lines to slow down or stop it though it seems unlikely. If China were to do such a thing, I'd advocate doing it very soon, soon enough that the US economy tanks before the election so Biden loses and Trump may maybe feel a little bit that China helped him which won't go that far in relations but at least flexes power. Then again it could lead to a war. So many variables. The Chinese route is one of caution, but the US knows this and plans around it.
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