Vietnam As A Leader of the Right-Wing Conspiracy, and Fisk as Soviet Memebot

Blood for Oil?

I have often heard the argument that the US invasion of Iraq was a ploy to gain control of regional oil supplies. I always found that point of view implausible; for starters, it is cheaper and easier to cut deals with dictators - witness Saudi Arabia and the Gulf rentier states, not to mention the arrangements between pre-2003 Iraq and Germany, France, and others. Moreover, oil producers do not control oil buyers. If a US oil company operates an oil field, this does not mean that the oil it produces will ultimately end up in the US. What is essential to remember is that oil, like any resource, will always be available at a price. (This is why predictions of doom from oil running out are absurd - as oil depletes, its price will rise; those who really need it will still be able to get it, and meanwhile huge economic incentives for alternative energy will stimulate growth in the non-oil-related energy sectors. Scarcity fuels innovation, as with the Green Revolution that began in the 1960s. But that deserves its own blog posting later.)

In any case, now that Iraq has awarded its major oil contracts to companies in China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia - and now that experts predict other Asian firms are "well positioned to grab further contracts" - I hope that the "no blood for oil" crowd will finally abandon their fanciful red herring. (For a less fanciful take on oil strategy, consider this article.)

The Recent Iranian Affair

On another topic, I cannot resist joining Language Log in mocking Robert Fisk. The grammar-challenged anti-Western rhetorician, fresh from his condemnation of cartographers a few weeks back, predicted the following on 2 April:

Oh how pleased the Iranians must have been to hear Messers Blair and Bush shout for the "immediate" release of the luckless 15 - this Blair-Bush insistence has assuredly locked them up for weeks - because it is a demand that can be so easily ignored. And will be.

Fisk goes on to explain that if these hostages are held indefinitely, it's all our own fault anyway (or at least the fault of our evil leaders.) The non-Westerners, the "victims" in Fisk's view, as usual bear no responsibility for their actions. It is interesting that Fisk seems to be more anti-British than the Iranian government, which opted to release the British hostages fewer than 72 hours after Fisk wrote his words.

I recently read an essay arguing that many of the tropes that Fisk and others use have their origins in Cold-War-era Soviet disinformation campaigns. What do readers think? Is it plausible?