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Is it all about oil?
Cheap oil may not be the prime US motive in confronting Hussein, but it could be the outcome.
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"Clearly, there is more than just oil at stake" in Iraq, says Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the US Business and Industrial Council Educational Foundation who has written extensively about US economic interests in the Gulf.
But neither is the face-off with Hussein not about oil, says Mr. Tonelson. The presence of so much petroleum in and around Iraq is at the very least a complicating factor as the US and the world weigh their options. "If Saddam Hussein were located on a remote Pacific island and he were developing weapons of mass destruction, we would not be so concerned," says Tonelson.
Oil, after all, is a main reason the US is so interested in the Middle East in the first place. The region remains the world's preeminent source of high-quality, easy-to-obtain petroleum, despite the resurgence of the Russian oil industry and the increased importance of Latin American petroleum exports.
US as guarantor of stability
The US has served as the western world's guarantor of Gulf stability since the end of World War II, when it took over that role from a weakened Britain. For Saudi Arabia and the smaller gulf oil states the arrangement has worked well, with Washington serving as a bulwark of their sovereignty. Other nations in the region have not always found that to be the case. In Iran, for instance, the CIA conspired in the 1953 coup that overthrew elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh primarily due to US concerns about impending nationalization of oil fields. And militant Islam has found the American security presence near its holiest sites to be a constant irritant. Osama bin Laden often cited the deployment of US troops in Saudi Arabia as a reason for calling for anti-American jihad.
Iraq, before the brutalities of Hussein's regime crushed its commercial spirit, was one of the easiest countries in the Middle East for western firms to do business with. It was long stereotyped as the Germany of the Middle East relatively well-educated, efficient, and eager to make money. Though they say little publicly, some administration officials are already planning for the day when Baghdad resumes this role following a change in regime.
In a rare discussion of this topic, Under Secretary of Commerce Grant Aldonas said earlier this month that war with Iraq might end up having a positive economic effect.
"It will open up the spigot on Iraqi oil, which would certainly have a profound effect in terms of the performance of the world economy for those countries that are manufacturers and oil consumers," he said during a press conference.
Iraq's proven reserves of oil are about 112 billion barrels. That's more than double Russia's 49 billion barrel reserve, and is topped only by Saudi Arabia's 261 billion barrels.
Hussein plays oil card
Hussein has attempted to use his oil as lever of influence. Allowed to pump petroleum under the UN's humanitarian oil-for-food program, he has shut off supplies so often in protest of one US or UN action or another that the market basically discounts the availability of Iraqi crude when factoring prices, say a number of analysts. Currently Iraq produces about 3 percent of world supply, around 1.7 million to 2.4 million barrels a day.
