This may not be a particularly new insight for people here, but it has become increasingly clear to me that we will not withdraw from Iraq. The war planners and 'international energy policy' architects (who happen to be the same people) think that if we leave, we essentially surrender forever our ability to control any significant new source of oil. Forget about democracy, Saddam, or threat of attack, Iraq was the low hanging fruit of untapped oil reserves, the easy win, and that is why we went there.
If we do not have direct control (through private oil companies) of some major source of oil when things get tight due to peak oil - game over for us. We will be at the mercy of countries in the middle east and russia to provide us with oil and natural gas so we can continue to grow food in the current industrial ag fashion, drive our gas guzzlers, heat our homes, produce much of anything, or defend ourselves with a mechanized military. This is a fight about who controls the energy and a desperate attempt to make sure we're not left begging for the energy source on which our current infrastructure depends.
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