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...and the point wasn't to "get the oil" necessarily, but to take control of it so Hussein wouldn't flood the market and make the price go down.
by lurchpop 13y ago
...and the point wasn't to "get the oil" necessarily, but to take control of it so Hussein wouldn't flood the market and make the price go down.
- foobarqux 13y agoControl of the oil in Iraq is more strategically important than in the one scenario you describe. As an aside I never read that Hussein had threatened to flood the market, I read that he threatened, as a negotiating tactic, to withhold oil. Do you have a source for the "flooding the market" claim?
- gallerytungsten 13y agoIt wasn't about flooding the market, it was about pricing in Euros, thus taking aim at the dollar as the sole reserve currency. (Among other things.) Example: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998512,00.html http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,998512,00.h...
- dredmorbius 13y ago(I'd just posted a related item on this) For values of "for other things" of creating a massive flood of dollars on the world financial markets, undercutting its value, and precipitating a financial crisis the likes of which the US still hasn't seen.
- dredmorbius 13y agoThere's also the theory suggested by some (I've just watched Robert Newberg's "History of Oil" though I've seen the point made elsewhere) that it was the move by Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela to move oil sales from dollars to Euros which had something to do with the war. Truth is the story's likely complicated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DCwafIntj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DCwafIntj0