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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: quehubo who wrote (133145)	5/16/2004 10:50:13 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

I suppose your argument is that the Iraqi's would do fine looking after themselves, but this ignores the last 20 years in Iraq. No, my question is what interests of a future Iraq would be served by withholding their oil from the world oil market. If, over the short or mid-term there are insufficient interests to withhold their oil from the world market, then we don't care who gets the oil since it's a fungible commodity. For instance if it goes to China then China will presumably not buy as much oil elsewhere and that oil will become available to other countries. Even if there's an attempt to shut the U.S. out of the Iraqi oil trough, as events have shown, the oil will tend to go where the money is. In fact we got our share when the sanctions were in place. I guess my point is that when it comes to putting food on the table and a roof over their heads, the Iraqi people will most likely use the lone resource of Iraq that can help them live more comfortably; oil. Of course we might not get the oil production contracts but then that's not a "right" of America, at least not yet. Venezuela is an interesting situation. The strife there has been between the striking oil workers and the government. The workers have held the oil production hostage to their demands. I agree that the resulting drops in production and the damage to their fields is our, and their, problem, however, that's an internal issue that we have little control over. How do you stop a country from harming itself in an internal fight over the allocation of the benefits that accrue from its oil reserves. The same thing could happen in Saudi Arabia if there is political upheaval in that country. Does that possibility give us the right to use military force or to continue an occupation? Do we have some moral, international law or "self defense" right to use military force against a nation that threatens our economic well-being? Am I missing something? Does our military might give us the right to force other nations to trade with us on our terms? How does this justify our actions in Iraq?