Well, I’m going to disagree. But if you really want to debate that, let’s do so in a separate thread. I’m not really interested in hijacking this thread into a debate about just how much of a poopypants McCain is. It’s bad enough that we have 15 different threads on this subject, and we’ve got the same posters posting the same nonsense in all of them. (An exaggeration, but fair. 
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Unsurprisingly, the Israelis worry.
However, there’s also this:
I want us to do nothing. We’re done with Iraq, its in their hands now. If it descends into chaos again, if Iran takes over, if it becomes a new terrorist haven, we should take the consequences of that as a way of showing how stupidly wrong we were and as an implicit “fuck you” to the neocons who got us into that mess
I’m sure pointing out how stupidly wrong we were will be a comfort when the price of gas doubles. 
Honestly, gas prices are not a huge concern compared to you the possibility of more terrorist attacks on US soil.
Am I reading that correctly? It was oil that drove us to invade Iraq in the first place you say.
Actually nothing ‘drove’ Bush into invading Iraq let alone oil. Iraq’s oil could have gone freely on the market within several months of March 2003. Sanctions on Iraq would be lifted when Blix and El Baradai gave the UNSC the word that Iraq was disarmed and long term monitoring were put into place.
[QUOTE=NotfooledbyW]
Am I reading that correctly? It was oil that drove us to invade Iraq in the first place you say.
[/QUOTE]
Seems like a simple sentence. Is anyone else having issues getting my point?
And lifting the sanctions would have been bad (especially in Bush et als opinion). Securing 1/5 of the worlds oil reserves and a large percentage of the daily production capacity is a bit more important than you apparently are aware of. And it’s going to be exactly that same equation that countries other than the US are going to be making in the next few months. It’s why it’s important and getting great international attention that a radical Sunni group is expanding into Iraq (when no one really cared that much that they did the same thing in Syria…and no one really cares when radical groups do crazy shit in other parts of the world where they don’t have a great deal of oil reserves or production capacity).
If you want to disagree, well, that’s fine…but don’t pretend you don’t understand what I’m saying, because I might believe it of you, even with that simple declarative statement I made there.
The trouble is that it will impact everything. I’m also unsure, in the short term, whether or not there is enough slack currently in the system to account for a major disruption of production in Iraq. Guess we’ll find out, but I think it’s a much more serious issue than a lot of folks seem to realize.
I understand exactly what you wrote. I just wanted to make sure you meant to say we were ‘driven’ to invade Iraq over oil. And when you say ‘we were driven’ you should expect pushback from the near 6 of 10 of us that were in favor of Bush granting UN inspectors more time to peacefully disarm Iraq even if that process took several more months. I am one American that was not driven to support an invasion over peacefully disarming Iraq through the UN.
If you think Bush was ‘driven’ to invade by oil you are wrong about that too. There was no higher threat to Iraq’s oil with 200 UN inspectors on the ground in March 2003, specifically as compared to no inspectors on the ground in October 2002.
So if Bush actually held that bad/erroneous opininion in March 2003 do you accept it to be plausible?
Lifting sanctions on Iraq would have been in accordance with international law. Are you saying Bush trumps international law?
Hopefully plenty of Americans outside of Fox Nation and Disciples of Drudge, have matured in common good sense to fully accept an Iran/US alignment on resolving Iraq with very minimal US direct military participation.
Here is a pretty good OP-ED on the unfolding situation in Iraq;
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Who Will Win in Iraq?
By STEVEN SIMON
June 16, 2014
Some excerpts - “consider the brute demographic reality” - “Sunnis were reduced to as little as 12 percent of the city’s population.” in Bsghdad,
Another key point:
It appears ISIS ISIL has done a large portion of non-extremist Sunnis a disservice by bringing Sinni terrorism back into Iraq,
More from the Link:
The wisest move snd perhaos the only move the US can make is to coordinate destroying the Sumni terrorists without US direct or open military involvement.
The entire “oil war” premise is a myth fabricated by the anti-war movement. It was not, is not, and has never been true.
And, FWIW, there is no good outcome to this conflict. This is a conflict that has been brewing for DECADES in Iraq. The Sunni / Shia / Kurdish split was always a kettle ready to boil over. The difference is that now that Saddam and the US are gone, the Iraqis have the freedom to wage their civil war without any strongman trying to artificially hold the country together.
This is not so much a terrorist invasion as the obvious and predictable result of a country incapable of resolving its differences and assimilating into one culture. There will never be peace in Iraq until the Sunni/Shia/Kurdish groups work their own problems out, even if that means separating Iraq into three independent states. Any attempt to defeat the insurgency without solving the underlying conflicts is doomed to fail. And that’s not something anyone can do for them but something they must do themselves.
While that is true, I was more focused on XT’s determination that something “drove” George Bush into invading Iraq in March 2003. He was not ‘driven’ into anything. He decided he wanted to do it. Iraq did not force him to go there. They were being disarmed peacefully by UN inspectors at the time Bush invaded.
It’s probably fodder for another thread but of course it was (mostly) for oil.
Of course it wasn’t about the oil. That’s why they made a bee-line for the Oil Ministry, by-passed both the main arms depots and the locations they’d been screaming on about WMD’s.
Oil may not have been the only ingredient in the recipe for this cynical slice of pie but it’s certainly a major part of it.
Basically this. Be sure to let everyone know they need to respect the no-fly zone over Kurdistan and tell the others to go piss up a rope.
Never shoulda gotten into that mess and only a fool would get pulled back in.
There was no threat to Iraq’s oil from Iraq’s suspected possession of WMD in March of 2003 on the date that the invasion was decided because the UN inspectors were in Iraq resolving the WMD matter for once and for all, which in turn made Iraq’s oil reserves and worn out infrastructure more secure than it had been since 1998 when inspectors left.
XT boldly declared upthread ("The trouble with the US doing nothing is that the same issues that actually drove us to invade in the first place are still viable. No, not WMD. Oil.") and that is absolute false as stated.
XT is likely attempting to compensate for his own immediate support for the invasion because he was fooled by the Bush White House that an invasion was necessary and Bush was driven to war because a threat suddenly reared its ugly head in part because Iraq’s oil was under some terrorist threat with Saddam Hussein in power.
Most of us know and knew that it was not and that Bush was not to be believed.
Examine what XT wrote very closely in the light of what is happening as we speak:
("…that actually drove us to invade in the first place are still viable. ")
Today the threat to Iraq’s possession of oil is threatened by al Qaeda terrorist invading the soverign territory of Iraq and challenging the Shia dominated government there.
No such threat existed in 2003 at all. Not even close. XT is wrong.
Of course Iraq’s ‘close to the surface’ and ‘easily pumped’ high grade oil attracted attention and foaming at the mouth by governments and corporation alike. But that does not excuse XT to declare that there was a threat to Iraq’s oil or the world’s oil based economy in 2003 as exists today with the ISIS invasion of Iraq.
That is reduculous.
But, where’s the threat? Whoever controls those oilfields is going to pump and export the oil, because it’s good for nothing else and it’s too much money to pass up.
Surely the fighting over control would interfere with the pumping and export, no? Oil workers are tough dudes, but I think they’d hightail it in the face of open battle.