The real logic of the war always had to do with cleaning up the aftermath of OPEC and switching the economies of the Middle-East to a different developmental path.


Once the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries gained control over oil prices in the early 1970s, with the complicity of the Nixon Administration, subsequent US administrations had little choice but to side with one well-financed Middle-East regime against another for twenty years. The Iran-Iraq War was one result. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was another. Escalating terrorism was directed at Israel throughout.


Deposing Saddam Hussein�s government should be viewed as the taking-down of a dictator of America�s making � rather like the capture and jailing Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1990. Quite apart from benefits that the Bush Administration hopes will be conferred on civil society in Iraq, the pay-off already has been better Israeli-Palestinian relations. The next task is to jump-start some Palestinian growth � and to that end Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas was in Washington meeting with President Bush last week.

From economicprincipals.com.