October 26, 2004
Buckley and Oil
Willam Buckley does a good job of debunking those who would say that oil is not worth dying for, or that protecting oil resources is far less important than we thought it was. And while this is true, it doesn't respond to what Teresa Kerry means by "greed for oil". The problem is not our rational acceptance of the fact that we need oil. The problem is the huge profits that oil brings and the "natural" desire to dominate such profits. Securing oil fields as a major initial objective in Iraq is defensible enough. More unsettling is the fact that the potential for individual profits was a driving force behind the decision to go in.
In today's economy, oil is not a national resource--it is a private one. Or at least that is the case in contemporary Iraq, until (if ever) the oil fields and their lavish profits are returned to the Iraqis. Even if it is true that most of the oil profits go back to Iraq, Iraqis will never stop resenting the Americans making money off their natural resources.
Buckley is correct that America should fight for oil if such resources are unfairly denied to us. But that is not the same thing as fighting for oil company profits.