US strategic military positioning is approximately a trillion times more important than a few billion barrels of oil.
If you had 10 billion barrels of oil, at $80, and you manage to extract 3/4 of it over 30-40 years. Maybe you get a net $5-$10 billion per year economic benefit from that if you're lucky as the US. The US military budget is $800 billion every single year. The US isn't doing this for oil, it's about positioning vs other world powers.
Military projection, global strategic positioning, always trumps something like oil (especially when the US has plenty of that resource).
The US went into Iraq because of Russia, not because of oil. That was a Pentagon program to try to strip Russian influence out of the Middle East, stated directly by four star general Wesley Clark.
The US went into Syria because of Russia, not because of oil. The US is still in Syria because of Russia, not oil.
Most (not all) of what the US does in the Middle East is a power conflict with Russia.
Most of what the US now does in Asia is a power conflict with China.
Oil is a little toy chip on the table compared to the real stakes.
While I would agree that Russia was an aspect of the motivation for those incursions, I disagree that it is the total explanation. Russia is an aspect of a larger picture. After all, we don't go to war with Nations simply because they exist or are influential anywhere. There's a larger picture, just as the war in Ukraine is part of a larger picture than "freedom" or any other such condescending explanation.
The mainly-Russia explanation is also too convenient on a number of counts. First, in this current era of anti-Russian sentiment, it offers the large number of people that were responsible for the widely panned Iraq invasion an "out" that is, just now, socially acceptable.
These are people that are still neurotic about their attachment to the accepted situation that the predicate for the invasion was a lie. A neuroticism that is evident for anyone paying attention to what they still write with some consistency.
All national strength and well-being has an economic basis. Especially military projection. One can't separate our percieved interest in "getting Russia out of the Middle East", or some such, from economic interest. Or at least from economic calculus. Anyone attempting to sell such a tale should be suspect (not you, necessarily).
There are other massive red flags that indicate what the Iraq invasion was about, in terms of a larger picture. These stare in the face anyone willing to look, as they hide in plain sight. At the same time, at least one is inclusive of both the Russia and oil angles. I won't talk about that one. Look harder. Reinterpret crucial data for that era in a different manner from what we are widely told its nature was (and is). Its actual nature is sensible. What we are told about it is not.
The other motivation is military positioning, but has a scope that is well beyond Russia and China.
This "anti Russian sentiment" is nothing new. It's what is called political realism. It has always existed in Eastern Europe as they were more clear eyed when it comes to Russia. It has been also clearly present in US but the official rhetoric has been more soporific toward Russia. But it doesn't make sense to pretend anymore when Russia has opened its cards wide to everyone to see.
That's your nitpick and reason for taking the time to write? That the phrase "anti Russian sentiment" isn't instead presented as natural and eternal but instead as something that ebbs and flows? Go scream at a wall.
>The mainly-Russia explanation is also too convenient on a number of counts. First, in this current era of anti-Russian sentiment, it offers the large number of people that were responsible for the widely panned Iraq invasion an "out" that is, just now, socially acceptable.
To be fair to them, the video they're referring to with Wesley Clark is from 15-ish years ago.
If you had 10 billion barrels of oil, at $80, and you manage to extract 3/4 of it over 30-40 years. Maybe you get a net $5-$10 billion per year economic benefit from that if you're lucky as the US. The US military budget is $800 billion every single year. The US isn't doing this for oil, it's about positioning vs other world powers.
Military projection, global strategic positioning, always trumps something like oil (especially when the US has plenty of that resource).
The US went into Iraq because of Russia, not because of oil. That was a Pentagon program to try to strip Russian influence out of the Middle East, stated directly by four star general Wesley Clark.
The US went into Syria because of Russia, not because of oil. The US is still in Syria because of Russia, not oil.
Most (not all) of what the US does in the Middle East is a power conflict with Russia.
Most of what the US now does in Asia is a power conflict with China.
Oil is a little toy chip on the table compared to the real stakes.