Why War with Iraq Is Not about the Oil
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By Gary S. Becker
A number of leaders of the antiwar movement have been loudly proclaiming that a war with Iraq would be all about America's desire to gain control of oil supplies there and elsewhere in the Middle East. In a recent BusinessWeek story, a German Green Party opponent of war was quoted as saying: "Saddam is no saint, but to me the whole thing smells of...oil." This economic argument, popular in Europe, makes little sense. If oil were the driving force behind the Bush Administration's hard line on Iraq, avoiding war would be the most appropriate policy.