Interesting discussion over at the Book Club about Juan Cole's new book, and whether it was the Oil Lobby or the Israel Lobby that tricked the U.S. into invading Iraq. It's kind of a moot debate; I have yet to read Cole's book, but I believe he argues there was a confluence of interests.

Let me suggest precisely where (aside from Dick Cheney's office) that confluence occurred: Kirkuk. Here (slightly condensed) is something I wrote back in mid-2003. In fact, I had posted an earlier version on Slate on March 8, 12 days before U.S. troops crossed into Iraq. The scenario never materialized -- but not because it wasn't on the radar of those who launched the Iraq War:

At a press briefing the week the war began, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer erroneously referred to it as Operation Iraqi Liberation. He did not use the acronym, but the Internet buzzed over the apparent freudian slip, which neatly reinforced the conviction of the millions marching behind banners reading, ''No blood for oil.''
Their skepticism is understandable. This White House is filled with oil persons. President George Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld all ran or worked for major energy companies, as did adviser George Schultz. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's former employer, Chevron, named an oil tanker after her.
Unlike weapons of mass destruction, everyone agrees that  Iraq has oil. Not that the White House has harped on that fact. Asked about it, Bush had only this to say: ''The resources of Iraq will be used to benefit their real owners - the Iraqi people.''
Of course, a barrel of Iraqi oil costs $1.50 or less at the wellhead, and can sell for up to $40. That leaves room for lots of people to take a cut, with plenty left to rebuild a devastated Iraq.
Iraq is often referred to as having the second-largest oil reserves in the world. But there's been virtually no oil exploration for 20-plus years, and many experts believe Iraq has more undiscovered oil than Saudi Arabia. Even without new discoveries, output can easily be tripled or quadrupled from the million or so barrels a day it sold under the UN oil-for-food program.
Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile and convicted embezzler the Pentagon backs to rule a liberated Iraq, has stated he would favour U.S. companies when it comes to new exploration leases and infrastructure work. In fact, even before a new government has been installed, the U.S. has - without tender - signed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with American companies to begin that job.
There is a bit of a paradox here: the U.S. gets very little of its oil from Iraq; its biggest supplier is Canada, followed closely by Saudi Arabia. Iraq provided a tiny percentage of U.S. demand, even before UN sanctions.
But direct acquisition and consumption of the oil was never the issue; control of it is.
Because, beyond the financial benefits to U.S. oil giants (and by extension the U.S. economy), there are major strategic benefits. If Iraqi oil can be ramped up to rival Saudi production, the U.S. - with its hand on the spigot - could virtually dictate world oil prices. That should reduce OPEC's power, forcing other oil-producing states to play nice -- not to mention consumers like the Europeans and Chinese, America's only real rivals for empire.
Still, it's a big leap to the idyllic picture Bush has painted, of a Middle East remade in the democratic, prosperous image of the United States. Unless, of course, the Mideast balance of power shifts so profoundly that virtually every Arab or Muslim leader recognizes the game is up, throws in his cards, and applies for a job helping administer the new world empire.
Here's a hint as to how that might come about.
In early April, four or five days before Baghdad fell, Israeli infrastructure minister Joseph Paritzky mused to the daily Ha'aretz about reopening the Mosul-Haifa pipeline from Iraq's Kirkuk oil fields, closed for obvious political reasons since the creation of Israel in 1948. He also let it slip that talks with Jordan on the project were imminent.
Jordan - through which the rusty pipeline runs -- denied everything, but Turkish firms reported being contacted by Israeli companies about doing subcontract work on it.
Paritzky was quoted as saying Israel could save 20 per cent on its oil bill, since it now has to buy more expensive Russian oil. But that misses the point entirely. After half a century of disuse, the original pipeline no longer exists in any usable form. It would have to be rebuilt from scratch - so its capacity can be whatever the current traffic will bear.
Are Paritzky's words a trial balloon? A Guardian article quoted U.S. officials as confirming that talks about the pipeline were going on last month between Israel, the U.S. and Chalabi. It sure sounds as if some advance planning has gone into this.
The scenario is simple: the U.S.-run Iraqi administration - or the proxy state that follows in a year or two - ''reconstructs'' the Haifa pipeline, which opened in 1934-35 but operated for little more than a decade. The old line to the Mediterranean made perfect economic sense at the time, and the new one - no doubt big-bore and state of the art - would make even more.
Israel could jump-start its moribund economy with cheap Iraqi oil, and with transit fees levied on its export to Europe and abroad.
In return, the U.S. might exact Israeli acceptance of a viable Palestinian state. (If land for peace didn't fly, maybe land for peace and oil will.)
Jordan, which up till now has had cheap Iraqi oil trucked in, would get its supplies directly off the new pipeline running through its territory, in exchange for its military guarding the line from the ever-present threat of sabotage.
The U.S. would need a big permanent military base near Kirkuk to guard the actual oilfield, but would in exchange get ... a big military base convenient to all Mideast capitals!
It was leaked last month that the Pentagon was eyeing such a base, as well as another at Iraqi airfield H1, so-called because it guarded the primary pumping station on the long-disused pipeline. Following the uproar that ensued, Rumsfeld denied there was any such plan.
The Arab ''street'' would of course erupt, but then that's what we peaceniks predicted about the conquest of Iraq itself; it didn't happen, did it? Arab leaders can be expected to adapt to the new reality.
Syria might be bought off by resumption of oil flow through the Kirkuk-Banias pipeline, which the U.S. cut as the war was winding down, on the pretext that Iraqi leaders were escaping into Syria. (Bush says he now believes the Syrians are ''getting the message.'')
There's a side pipeline from Syria to Lebanon, so pressure can also be brought on that country to rein in Hezbollah.
Once the Haifa pipeline opens, Saudi Arabia's earnings on its oil, much of it now tankered through the Suez Canal, would be hostage to market pressures, as leveraged by the Israeli-American axis. Did I mention there's already a functioning pipeline from Kirkuk to Iraq's Persian Gulf port, which could easily be used to pump southern Iraqi oil - even Kuwaiti oil - north toward Haifa?
Saudi Arabia might even be persuaded to revive the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, shut down after Israel occupied the Golan Heights through which it ran. This time, however, the oil would not have to run through Syria -- only to the point in Jordan where it intersects the Mosul pipeline. Then on to Israel for offloading at Haifa.
As for those unco-operative Europeans, they had better take a number and line up their tankers off the Israeli coast if they want any of that cheap Iraqi oil.
Is this all blue-sky speculation? Well, there is historic precedent.
In the mid-1980s, when Saddam was a U.S. ally, Rumsfeld tried to talk him into a Bechtel project to pipe Iraqi oil to Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba. Israel has long had a pipeline running north to Haifa from its port of Eilat. The two pipelines would terminate just a few kilometres apart. Linking them would be a simple step. Saddam balked.
But such dreams live on. In the past year - well before the war began -- Bechtel, along with Cheney's old company Halliburton, quietly received multi-million-dollar contracts to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure, including the oil industry, after hostilities end.
It makes you wonder what went on at Cheney's top-secret White House energy-policy conference. It even raises the question of whether a plan to rebuild the Mosul-Haifa pipeline might actually have preceded the decision to invade Iraq.