Am I missing how that ties in with a prix fix price menu for oil?

there are only two sources of the soft non polluting coal in the world southern utah and indonisia.


so if your going to talk about people from other countries helping presidents get reelected.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Iraq-War-Map.png

Here is a link for a man of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, this is not counting the attack coming from the Iraqi Kurdistan, which was somewhat major.

If no attack would have been commited on Iraq in 2003, a three-way attack from the north of Iraq/Turkey, the Gulf (with Kuwait as launching point) and Afghanistan would have been possible anyway.

The Iraqi Army have been no treath whatsoever against the highly-trained and equiped U.S. military, as I am sure that, right now, Iran cannot stand ground to ground in a conventional war against U.S.A., outside a regular invasion, which required a lot of manpower. The U.S. Army is not, have never been an army of invasion. It is an army made to beat the other country, not conquer it.

A non-invaded Iraq would have meant that Iran knew it would face America at the height of it's power. Both military (full infantry power) and politicly (America lost a lot of sympathy created by 9/11 because of what was largely perceived as an unjustified invasion)

When I look in a non-emotive way at the situation, I see that the USA won.. 'bout nothing. Ok, not nothing, but it lost much more than it gained. Seriously, you lost support in the EU. You allowed Iran to radicalise, and your regular U.S. trooper is spending 60% of it's active duty outshore, which is dangerously high. And to think about the psychological treath faced by these soldiers when they will finally return, I do not dare.

I would agree with you, except the Bush family has very close ties to Saudi Arabia. It's no secret the Saudis pressured OPEC on behalf of Bush to get oil prices down right before his last election, when it was becomming a hot button issue.

Again, as I say, no more than any other president.  Clinton took credit for similar pressure, and was known to crow about how he was such good friends with the Shieks.  They dont like Bush more than Clinton, they just like the American protection most of all.

A non-invaded Iraq would have meant that Iran knew it would face America at the height of it's power. Both military (full infantry power) and politicly (America lost a lot of sympathy created by 9/11 because of what was largely perceived as an unjustified invasion)

First, Iran was already radicalized (yes, that can be blamed on America too - in 1978), so that argument is not really relevant.

Second, before, during and after Iraq, Iran was thumbing its nose at both the UN and the US.  So how did we lose leverage with them?  Or even the rest of the world have any leverage with them?

And Third, Iran knows that its punishment does not require a single boot on the ground, and thus Iraq is not detracting anything from that threat.  They also think they know (and may be right) that the US does not have the stomach to use the necessary means to reign them in, and that is why they have been thumbing their nose, before, during and after.

As for the respect of the EU?  I guess that hurts a lot.  Like it hurt in 1939.  But then that respect magically re-appeared in 1942.  I wonder why???????

(Zoomba, where did you put those sarcasm tags?)