If we view the current occupation through the lens of fifty years of U.S. policy, we can begin to construct a rationale for war that is not charming but at least has the benefit of coherence. Our best client state, Saudi Arabia, is in danger of collapsing under the weight of a thousand fattened princes, and our friendship is further troubled by the fact that fifteen of its citizens killed nearly 3,000 of ours. Moreover, as is clear from the previous writings of Cheney and Rumsfeld, this administration sees China, Russia, and the European Union as potential superpower rivals on the order of the old Soviet Union. The three of them together have oil contracts pending in Iraq worth as much as $1.1 trillion. Those contracts will go into effect the moment the U.N. lifts its sanctions regime, giving our rivals unprecedented control over our economic health. What would seem to most observers to be a series of positive developments—the normalization of Iraqi politics, the privatization of the Iraqi oil business, the imminent collapse of a corrupt Saudi regime—is instead seen as a distinct threat to our “certain grasp” on the oil so vital to our “greatness and independence.” And so we must invade Iraq in order to ensure continued U.S. control over the flow of Middle East oil.

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