Oil is fungible so increasing or decreasing the global supply still impacts US prices. This is because unlike say concrete US suppliers can easily ship oil to the France if people in France are willing to pay more than US consumers.
Now that doesn’t mean the second Iraq war was about oil, but it does explain why we care more about the Middle East than say Africa.
Iraq was a lot more about making Hussein pay for various personal bs, expending vast amounts of built up ordnance, and getting the next set of officers combat experience than oil.
Re:Radiation spikes in Chernobyl
by arcticbull on Saturday February 26, 2022 @04:06PM
(#30481970)
I always assumed it was just Bush Jr settling the Bush Sr vendetta for having not finished the job in the first Iraq war.
Re:Radiation spikes in Chernobyl
by arcticbull on Friday February 25, 2022 @08:09PM
(#30474386)
That’s fine but the Iraqi government was already exporting their oil no?
There where sanctions between the first and second Iraq war, so somewhat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq
Double checking and it does look like they increased after the war, though not to an extreme degree. Things had largely returned to normal by 2000. https://tradingeconomics.com/iraq/crude-oil-production
What do folks exactly mean by "get the oil" because it certainly wasn't for domestic consumption. About 72% of US foreign oil comes from Canada and Mexico - mostly Canada. The rest, a broad smattering of countries without any meaningful concentration. Iraq accounts for only 3%. Considering the cost of the Iraq war was $2T that's a heck of a price to pay for just not that much oil. [1]
If America just wanted oil would it not go for the single largest proven reserves of oil on the entire planet, in Venezeula, and deposit some freedom there? The government there is equally hostile, and particularly unstable. In Civ parlance, the warmonger penalty would be low. [2]
[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
[2] https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-reserves-by-country/