Greenspan: The War He Wanted for Oil
In my last post I wrote about the reports that Alan Greenspan said the Iraq War was all about oil. It ends up that this was just the way the media was spinning it. Jonah Goldberg clarifies:
Greenspan claims that the quote was taken out of context. Greenspan called the Post — Bob Woodward, no less — to say that, in fact, he didn’t think the White House was motivated by oil. Rather, he was. A Post story Monday explained that Greenspan had long favored Saddam Hussein’s ouster because the Iraqi dictator was a threat to the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil passes every day. Hussein could have sent the price of oil way past $100 a barrel, which would have inflicted chaos on the global economy.
In other words, Greenspan favored the war on the grounds that it would stabilize the flow of oil, even though that wasn’t the war’s political underpinning. “I was not saying that that’s the administration’s motive,” Greenspan told Woodward, “I’m just saying that if somebody asked me, ‘Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?’ I would say it was essential.”
Interesting. And to show how cynical the Left can be regarding the Iraq War, here was Tom Lantos’ reaction when he heard that Greenspan said the war was all about oil (before Greenspan clarified what he meant):
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Burlingame) was asked if he agreed with Greenspan. “To a very large extent I agree with him, and I think it is very remarkable that it took Alan Greenspan all these many years and being out of office [to state] the obvious.”
… What’s funny — though not really ha-ha funny — is that Lantos voted for the war. If it was so obviously a war for oil, why did he vote for it? Unless, of course, he thinks it’s hunky-dory to go to war because of oil — though that didn’t sound like what he was trying to say.
As several other politicians and officials noted over the weekend, no White House briefer ever told Congress that this was a war for oil. The debates in Congress didn’t say this was a war for oil. Bush never gave a single speech saying this was a war for oil. (If oil was all Bush wanted, he hardly needed to go to war to get it.) So why is it so “obvious” to Lantos that it was a war for oil?
I get so tired of the Left being so certain that they know the evil motives of their political opponents. And in the case of Bush, they will say or believe almost anything.
Yes, it is obvious that Bush, Cheney, and Halliburton huddled back in 2003 and duped the whole country into going to war for oil profits. Obviously.
Rep. Tom Lantos simply sounds smug and ridiculous. No wonder I can’t ever bring myself to vote for a Democrat.
