A New Rationale Is Coming

Bob Herbert's op-ed is called "Blood & Oil"

He says that there is too much oil in the Middle East for the Bushies to leave -- ever.

Donald Rumsfeld said this week that we may start to withdraw troops in May 2006.

I think that both of these men are correct.

Oil has clearly been a major rationale for the war. For the Bushies, it may be real rationale, as Mr. Herbert says. I have deep ambivalence towards a war for oil. Ambivalence is not disagreement. 30 years of American history (1972-2002) made us unwilling or unable to resort to conservation methods, or alternative energy sources. Therefore, we have little choice but to go in and make sure that people like Sadaam Hussein are not controlling our oil fields. That people like the Saudi princes are not controlling our oil fields. And we pray that we are correct that this is a better way, the most conservation conscious way, the way God wants for us, to fuel our automobiles.

On the other hand, Rumsfeld knows that his all-volunteer army cannot sit in Iraq much longer without a change in recruitment (like, say, a draft). Someone on the political end, Andy Card, Karl Rove, W- himself, realizes that although they got by on War Fever in the 2002 election and the 2004 election, that it will be hard to go back to these same Red States, to these same people who give all, while the rest of us pontificate on blogs, and tell them there is no end to the war in sight.

We have to stay in the Middle East indefinitely, both militarily and as a matter of Middle East policy and energy policy, and to salvage all the assumptions behind the American Empire and the War on Terrorism.

We cannot stay in the Middle East indefinitely, politically and, perhaps as a matter of foreign policy in the rest of Asia (unless we offer China the oil at a reduced rate).

Looks pretty unstable to me. The public will soon be presented a new rationale for continuing our stay in Iraq.

Wish I knew what it was.