Progressive Opinion

tomdispatch.com — For years, "oil" and "Iraq" couldn't make it into the same sentence in mainstream coverage of the invasion and occupation of that country. Recently, that's begun to change, but "oil" and "the Pentagon" still seldom make the news together.

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thenation.com — What concrete steps can the United States take, immediately and during a withdrawal, to minimize further bloodshed, and encourage peace and stability in Iraq? And how can our nation and others contribute to Iraq's eventual recovery from its excruciating ordeal?

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khaleejtimes.com — Iraq contains perhaps the second largest oil reserves in the world, which are, furthermore, very cheap to extract: no permafrost or tar sands or deep sea drilling. For U.S. planners, it is imperative that Iraq remain under U.S. control, to the extent possible, as an obedient client state that will also house major U.S. military bases, right at the heart of the world's major energy reserves.

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tomdispatch.com — It's been on the minds of antiwar activists and war critics since 2003. And little wonder. If you don't remember the pre-invasion of Iraq neocon quip, "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran..." — then take notice. Even before American troops entered Iraq, knocking off Iran was already "Regime Change: The Sequel." It was always on the Bush agenda and, for a faction of the administration led by Vice President Cheney, it evidently still is.

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truthdig.com — The U.S. should also get out of Iraq, whether in orderly or disorderly fashion, since what happens afterward is surely the business of the Iraqis, who in the past — before the 2003 invasion — have always managed in one way or another to settle their own affairs. What happens to Iraq now can pose no serious threat to the United States.

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middle-east-online.com — Those most responsible for America's new security gap favor a century of commitment to Iraq, have no plan to stabilize Afghanistan, and some now push a war with Iran.

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blackagendareport.com — The Bush administration has justifiably criticized Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. However, neither the White House nor the Congress is sincerely concerned about human rights and democracy as a matter of principle. They are more likely acting out of political expediency.

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openleft.com — Since progressive bother to open our eyes to reality, we notice that America just tried to invade what is essentially the second largest gas station in the world. And we screwed it up.

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news.newamericamedia.org — The number of Americans who believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake has surpassed the number who felt the same way about Vietnam during that war. At the same time, a much quieter U.S. military build-up is underway on another continent. The ultimate objective of the two efforts is the same: securing Big Oil's access to the regions' oil. The impact in Africa will likely be the same as in Iraq: perpetual occupation, instability and growing anti-Americanism.

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pbs.org — Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire, and ashes. And now the bottom turns out to be … the bottom line. It is about oil.

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