Just had an evil thought (I'm sure its not original but its new to me).
We've spent so much time in the past year or so marvelling out how appallingly shortsighted the administration has been in its post-war Iraq planning. I mean, who could imagine a group of people who had achieved almost total control of the US government could be so blindingly stupid?
Maybe it is stupid (and crazy) like a fox. To a significant extent the chaos in Iraq has worked for those whose primary interest is controlling oil. A stable and secure Iraq would have some leverage. It would also have time to pay attention to issues other than personal survival. But right now the fears of impending civil war are trumping concern over who's manning the gas pumps.
I've never bought into the theory that oil was the sole motivation behind this war. But you'd have to be a moron, or completely disingenuous, to claim that oil politics didn't play a major role in this drama. More specifically, that lust for oil didn't at the very least push people in a direction they were already leaning.
I don't think Abu Ghraib was on the official agenda. I think it was a natural and forseeable outcome of an undisciplined leadership.
