No.
Saddam's move to the Euro, recorded event. The weakening of the sanctions on Iraq and prospect of their falling apart - common knowledge. The role of the petrodollar - common knowledge. The domination of the US executive administration by oil and military interests - common knowledge. The nexus of: threat to the petrodollar/PNAC agenda/oil and industry profit motive - observation.
Is that last observation where you locate your doubts? They appear, superficially, to be derived from simple misreadings, so far in this thread.
All of this stuff was just ordinary and recognized and obvious possibility, at the time, in my crowd. It was the standard proposed explanation for W's push for invasion, the WMDs and terrorist links being obvious lies.
They were already, on their own, at the time, talking seriously about moving away from the dollar in concert with Saddam's move to the Euro. They have since done so, on their own - trading in Euros, in Yuan, etc. You can ask them about their motives, if you're puzzled - they don't seem all that mysterious to me.
They were at the time and until very recently subject to severe trade constraints, which limited their income and unilateral options while raising their production costs. That was due to change, to their advantage, if the petrodollar had been severely damaged by Saddam.
We'll see, going forward, now. Iraq's oil industry is under the US thumb still, but Iran's influence and options are increasing year by year.
No. KSA is dependent on the income stream in dollars and the US alliance for security, etc. The PNAC agenda of removing their choice in the matter depended on getting Iran and Iraq under thumb first.
That guy completely ignores the critical currency issue, as well as the production cost differential. And his comments on increases in production somehow overlook the sanctions - he talks as if Saddam were running at capacity as he spoke, with infrastructure in good repair and no constraints on trade, so that major increases in production would require new infrastructure and several years, while Iran, Russia, and China were apparently no factors at all.
That almost reads as deliberate deception - could he honestly have overloooked that kind of stuff?
The US did go to war, and did automatically and as predicted force its energy costs up by doing so - to the enormous profit of Exxon, Chevron, Halliburton, et al. I don't have to "believe" - I can read about in history books.
