Told you so --Oil's got nothing to do with it....
[Judeo]con ideology, not Big Oil, pushed for war
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Why did the administration of President George W Bush push to invade Iraq? Most left-wing critics --epitomized perhaps by Michael Moore's blockbuster documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11-- have rather reflexively argued that the economic factor, particularly the interests of Big Oil, or "the ruling class", must have been decisive.
But many right-wing critics, who know the ruling class from the inside, lean to a different explanation, in part by pointing out that Big Oil, to the extent it took any position at all on the war, opposed it. As evidence, they cite the unusually public opposition to a unilateral invasion voiced quite publicly by such eminent oil and ruling-class-related influentials as former president George H W Bush's national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and secretary of state James Baker.
While they do not deny that some economic interests --construction giants, such as Halliburton and Bechtel, and high-tech arms companies-- may have given the push to war some momentum, the decisive factor in their view was ideological, and the ideology, "[Judeo-]conservative".
Powered by both Jewish and non-Jewish [Judeo-]conservatives centered in the offices of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney and by White House deference to the solidly pro-Zionist Christian Right, the [Judeo-]conservative worldview --dedicated to the security of Israel and the primacy of military power in a world of good and evil-- emerged after September 11, 2001 as the driving force in President Bush's foreign policy, as well as the dominant narrative in a cowed and complacent mass media.
[Judeo-]conservatives --their worldview, history, networks, strategic alliances, and their role in moving the United States to war in Iraq as well as the dangerous consequences of their policy prescriptions-- are the subject of America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order Cambridge University Press), by far the best study of the [Judeo-]conservative movement and its relevance to Bush's "war on terror" in the flood of critical books that have poured forth in the aftermath of the Iraq war.
[...]
Where the book breaks new ground, however, is in its efforts to describe the origins of the [Judeo-]conservative movement, its ups and downs over the course of the past 40 years, its core beliefs, and why it poses serious threats to both the US interests as traditionally defined by conservatives and to the health of the US democracy itself.
To Halper and Clarke, the [Judeo-]conservative worldview revolves around three basic themes: that "the human condition is defined as a choice between good and evil"; that military power and the willingness to use it are the fundamental determinants in relations between states; and that the Middle East and "global Islam" should be the primary focus in US foreign policy.
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