The Bush administration likes to say that the war in Iraq is about bringing "democracy" to the Middle East. By now, the only people who actually believe this lie are right-wing ideologues and their gullible flock. Everyone else knows that this war is about oil, money, and power.
But whose oil, money, and power? Well, the House of Saud's, for one.
Saudi Arabia has a vested interest in maintaining the American presence in the Middle East and prolonging the Iraq war. Every American soldier who has lost their life has done so not in defense of freedom, but in the service of the House of Saud.
Consider: If Iraq were actually to become a fully functioning country it would pose a major threat to Saudi Arabia. As the situation currently stands, Saudi Arabia enjoys a position of essentially unchallenged preeminence in the Arab world. Egypt has a much larger population, but the Saudis' oil wealth and international influence make them the de facto leaders of the pan-Arab body politic. The other Arab states are more or less in their economic and political orbit. The Saudis set the tenor of debate on almost every regional issue, and no political or economic agenda that does not include them has any realistic chance for success.
This domination would be almost automatically challenged by a stable, successful Iraq. Suddenly there would be another major player in the region with vast petroleum reserves, and the international influence those reserves bring. And not just a player -- a secular player. An ascendant secular Iraq -- even one whose government was well short of a true democracy -- might still present a much more attractive partner to the West, and leader to the region, than the rigidly Islamist Saudis.
Ongoing war in Iraq also consumes the military, economic, and political resources of Iran, resources which might otherwise be directed against the Saudis. It's hard to deny that Tehran's undisguised desire for greater influence among its neighbors poses a direct threat to Saudi Arabia's position. Every day that US troops are fighting a proxy war against Iran is a day that Iran is not undermining the House of Saud. In fact, the only thing that would be better, from the Saudis' point of view, than a proxy war between the US and Iran would be an actual war between the US and Iran. In that vein, we might reflect that the US State Department is now considering listing the Iranian Republican Guard as a "terrorist organization." Such a move is certainly not likely to decrease US-Iranian tensions.
It's almost enough to make one wonder just who is pulling the Bush administration's strings.
There's a financial consideration to take into account, as well. Saudi Arabia, for all intents and purposes, can control the price of oil at its whim by raising or lowering production. Since the other petroleum-exporting states in the region have far smaller reserves, they have less room to maneuver and therefore less influence. Iraq possesses oil reserves (and production potential) that, while still less than the Saudis', are nevertheless the third largest in the Middle East. Large enough to enable Iraq, whether alone or in concert with such partners as Kuwait, to offset Saudi price mastery. No one likes competition.
The Saudis can also exploit the US presence in Iraq in another way. By fanning the flames of anti-Americanism the Saudis increase their credibility on the streets of every Arab city, while at the same time providing an outlet for their own increasingly restive, largely unemployable population.
Finally, having 162,000 American troops right next door, essentially at their beck and call, serves as reassurance to the Saudi monarchy and their Wahhabist cohorts. The kind of rigid control of their own populace that they exercise has historically not been conducive to a regime's longevity. The House of Saud is acutely aware of what happened to the House of Pahlavi in 1979, and will do whatever it takes to avoid a similar fate.
From every angle, the Iraq war is a win-win proposition for the existing Saudi power structure. Far from being our allies, as the Bush administration asserts, the Saudi leadership is playing both ends against the middle, getting Bush and company to do their dirty work, and reaping the benefits of sacrificing American -- and Iraqi -- lives.