The prospect of a Turkish attack on Iraq, which has contributed to the rise in oil above $90, has revived the debate over whether the US-led invasion of 2003 was a "war for oil".
Alan Greenspan’s remark in his memoirs that "the Iraq War is largely about oil" was seized on by some commentators. But the conspiracy theorising was overdone: he was hardly revealing the secret masterplan behind the invasion. Mr Greenspan was far from the heart of policy-making, although he did apparently make his views known. It looks more as though he is simply trying to make sense of a strategy that otherwise defies rational explanation. As Thomas Powers put it in the the New York Review of Books last month: "Not knowing why we went in allowed us to go in".
In the London Review of Books, Jim Holt attempts to make the argument that "It’s the oil", but his charges do not really stick. "The draft law that the US has written for the Iraqi congress would cede nearly all the oil to Western companies," he writes, which is true if you believe that those same companies control all the oil in Russia or Venezuela. The draft oil law allows for a range of different investment structures, and ultimate control over the resources always lies with the government. If Iraq needs foreign investment, which it desperately does, then it has to offer investors sufficiently attractive commercial terms.
It is not as if western companies have been rushing to take advantage of the invasion supposedly conducted for their benefit. Decisions on investing in Iraq are very difficult, and while much of the country is in flames, and the country’s politicians are so bitterly divided, none of the oil majors will be prepared to make significant commitments. Iraq’s oil production has hardly vindicated a decision to go to war for oil, either: it is running at about 2m barrels per day, down from 2.5m just before the invasion. Rupert Murdoch’s pre-war assertion that "the greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil" looks more deluded than ever.
Mr Holt writes "In terms of realpolitik, the invasion of Iraq is not a fiasco; it is a resounding success." If only that were true.