Guardian UK: Greenspan's shock revelation

[marmar]

Greenspan's shock revelation
The central banker was right: the attack on Iraq was about oil. But we don't need him to tell us an attack on Iran will be for the same reason.
Andrew Murray



Alan Greenspan - perhaps the single most pivotal figure in the US establishment over the last generation - has acknowledged that the Iraq war was about oil supplies.

The former boss of the US Federal Reserve is thus far in step with world opinion. However, he breaks with almost everyone else (notable exceptions: Melanie Phillips and the editor of the Observer) in believing that the war was nevertheless a good thing.

Indeed, his complaint, outlined in his just-published memoirs, is more that the prevailing political climate makes it impossible to sing it out loud and proud - we went to war to get the oil.

Nevertheless, Greenspan has done us a service. Not because he tells us anything that isn't obvious - witness the anger in Washington over its puppet Iraqi government's failure to pass the required law opening up its oil industry to untrammelled foreign exploitation. This is just one of the many benchmarks the Baghdad government is failing to meet, but it seems to be the one that grieves Bush and Cheney the most.

Nor simply because it gives the anti-war movement a chance to say "we told you so". Since everything opponents of the war warned about in 2002 and 2003 has long since come to pass (tragically) there is no longer much point in that. I mean, I wouldn't want to provoke my mates in the comment boxes beyond endurance.

But Greenspan's uncharacteristic glasnost is helpful at a time when the campaign for a further war against Iran appears to be gathering significant momentum. Dick Cheney is reported to be determined to go out with a bang, even if Republican Party prospects in 2008 form part of the collateral damage.

So we are already in the midst of a prolonged propaganda campaign to soften us up for war. It differs only in its specifics, rather than its intent and its mendacity, to the similar campaign directed against the Saddam regime prior to the invasion. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/andrew_murray/2007/09/greenspans_shock_revelation.html