By Yves Smith
Yves here. It really is remarkable to see the degree to which the Administration tries to, and succeeds in, convincing the public that our efforts to remake the Middle East are anything other than oil wars (well, maybe also about assuring that all guns v. butter budget fights go as much in favor of guns as possible). For instance, do you really think the failed effort of summer 2013 to go into Syria was really about our tender concern about Assad’s purported gassing of opponents? Or (if you weren’t paying attention all that closely) how about the way our intervention in Kurdistan seemed to be about the noble desire to protect religious sects no one had ever heard of before?
How about looking at a map? Heard about the Mosul Dam? Controlling it gives ISIS the ability to flood a huge chunk of Iraq down to Baghdad. But the coverage of the rescue of the Yazidi refugees in Kurdistan occurred at roughly the same time that ISIS got control of the Mosul Dam and got vastly more attention in the Western media. And let us not forget that Iraq has the second largest supply of oil reserves, and like Saudi Arabia’s, it’s highly prized sweet crude.
Related Reading:
Jim Norman: The US Plays the Oil Card
