Australian defence minister admits oil a key factor behind Iraq occupation By
Patrick O'Connor
6 July 2007

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Australia's Minister for Defence Brendan Nelson yesterday acknowledged that
maintaining control over Iraq's vast oil reserves was a critical factor
behind the ongoing US-led occupation. His comments came just before Prime
Minister John Howard delivered a major foreign policy address, similarly
stressing the need to ensure "energy security" amid growing "great power
competition" in the Middle East.

Howard and Nelson's statements lift the lid on the sordid economic and
strategic interests behind the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, and
Australia's support for it. In a rare moment of candour, the junior member
of the "coalition of the willing" has shattered the lies advanced by
Washington and its allies. The pretexts used to justify the initial attack
in 2003—including weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda connections to
Baghdad—have long been exposed as outright fabrications. It is now equally
clear that the ongoing occupation has nothing to do with establishing
democracy or security in Iraq, or in protecting ordinary people from the
threat of terrorism.

In his interview on ABC radio yesterday morning, Nelson was directly asked
whether oil was a reason why Australian troops were still deployed in Iraq.
"Energy security is extremely important to all nations throughout the world,
and of course, in protecting and securing Australia's interests," he
replied. "The Middle East itself, not only Iraq, but the entire region is an
important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world.
Australians and all of us need to think what would happen if there were a
premature withdrawal from Iraq."

The defence minister's statement provides unambiguous confirmation of the
criminal character of the Iraq war. One of the most fundamental precepts of
international law is that wars of aggression—that is, those launched by a
government in order to accrue economic or strategic advantage for its own
nation state—are unlawful. This was firmly established in the post-World War
II Nuremberg trials of the Nazi leadership, which codified the basis on
which architects of "wars of choice" could be prosecuted on war crimes
charges. There is no doubt that senior members of the Australian government,
alongside their counterparts in Washington and London, deserve to be placed
on trial for their actions.

Prime Minister Howard's speech, while somewhat more circumspect and far less
widely reported, provided an important insight into the government's
strategic calculations.

"While terrorist networks will remain a major threat, nation states will
remain the most important international actors; and the global balance of
power will remain the most important determinant of Australia's security,"
he told the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. "Power relativities, as
always, will go on changing with the continuing emergence of China and India
as major powers reshaping our regional landscape, and tilting the global
centre of gravity away from the Atlantic towards Asia....

"Globalisation could spur a resurgence of protectionism and increasing
rivalry over globally traded resources, particularly oil... Many of the key
strategic trends I have mentioned—including terrorism and extremism,
challenging demographics, WMD aspirations, energy demand and great-power
competition—converge in the Middle East. Our major ally and our most
important economic partners have crucial interests there."

Howard's remarks point to the real reasons why Washington attacked Iraq. US
imperialism, once the unchallenged global force, now faces mounting pressure
from powers in Europe and Asia, particularly China. The Bush
administration's drive to war in 2003—which was backed by the entire US
political and media establishment—marked an attempt by the American ruling
elite to overcome its relative economic decline by utilising military force
to seize control of the Middle East's resources and use them to dictate
terms to its rivals.

The quagmire in Iraq, however, has only intensified the deep-going crisis
confronting the US and its allies, including Australia. Howard's references
to "power relativities", "crucial interests", and "great power
competition"—terms reminiscent of those that characterised international
diplomacy in the 1930s—point to the escalating global tensions. His primary
concern is that unless the US-led occupiers successfully oversee the
establishment of a sustainable US client regime, other countries will
benefit from Iraq's lucrative oil resources at Washington's expense, thereby
undermining the entire strategic orientation of the Australian ruling elite.

*Government backtracks*

Shortly after the broadcast of Nelson's radio interview, senior government
ministers attempted to place the cat firmly back in the bag.

"We're fighting for something much more important here than oil, this is
about democracy," Treasurer Peter Costello declared. Howard, directly
contradicting his earlier address to the policy think tank, added: "We are
not there because of oil and we didn't go there because of oil. A lot of oil
comes from the Middle East—we all know that—but the reason we remain there
is that we want to give the people of Iraq a possibility of embracing
democracy."

The furious backtracking was driven by a concern that Nelson's open avowal
on public radio of Canberra and Washington's oil interests in Iraq
threatened to definitively expose the already threadbare pretexts for the
occupation. The vast majority of the Australian population opposed the war
from the outset, and hostility has only increased as the scale of the death
and destruction inflicted by the occupying forces has become more widely
known. Facing an election later this year amid plummeting opinion polls, the
government does not wish to go on record backing a war for oil in the Middle
East.

Letters to the editor and talkback radio calls today registered popular
outrage at Nelson and Howard's statements.

The media, however, did its best to play down the story's significance.
Today's editorial in the Murdoch-owned *Australian*, titled "Politics, Oil,
and War: stable energy supplies are critical to world order", openly
defended the government's admission of its oil interests. "Mr Howard has at
least offered an honest appraisal of why it is so important that the West
shows resolve in its attempts to bring stability to the region," it
declared.

Pointing to the contradictory statements from Howard, Labor leader Kevin
Rudd said the government "simply makes it up as it goes along on Iraq". In
fact, as Rudd well understands, while the public rationale has repeatedly
shifted as each lie has been exposed, the real agenda behind the war has
remained unchanged. Labor has fully subscribed to this agenda from the
outset and, like Howard, remains committed to the US occupation,
notwithstanding the party's minor tactical differences relating to the
number of Australian combat troops involved.

Likewise, Rudd agrees with the Howard government's military interventions
closer to home, in the South Pacific. In another significant foreign policy
speech yesterday, Rudd addressed the Lowy Institute for International Policy
and proposed an intensified push into Australia's immediate region. Amid
obligatory rhetoric about humanitarian concerns, Rudd made clear that the
central aim was to ensure that Australian imperialism maintained its
dominant role throughout the South Pacific against the growing incursions of
rival powers.

On ABC television's "Lateline", Tony Jones asked Rudd the evening before his
address: "Are you also motivated at all by a fear that regional competitors,
other powers, are moving into the Pacific, increasingly influential and
could in fact supplant Australia's interests in some of these places?"

Rudd replied: "Well, to answer your blunt question equally bluntly—yes... If
we fail to act effectively, then I think we're going to see a long-term
drift in Australia's strategic standing right across this region as well. So
the 'arc of instability' becomes a vehicle through which what was once an
area in which we were the principal power, we become supplanted over time by
other powers from beyond the region."

Taken together, yesterday's statements of Nelson, Howard and Rudd highlight
the real interests behind the US invasion of Iraq and Australia's support
for it, along with the equally predatory interests driving their operations
in the South Pacific.

See Also:
Australian neo-colonialism comes home: The Northern Territory and the
Solomon Islands
<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/ntsi-j28.shtml>[28 June 2007]
Australian PM outlines indefinite military agenda in South Pacific
<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jan2007/sep-j18.shtml>[18 January 2007]
Australian government sets course for militarism and war
<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/sep2006/sepa-s07.shtml>[7 September 2006]

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