Greenspan is wrong. The war is not about oil.

Allegations that the Bush Administration was driven to invade Iraq by a lust for the country’s oil have been part of the anti-war movement’s narrative even before the war’s first shots were fired. The image of a White House hijacked by a cabal of former oil executives who steer foreign policy to advance Big Oil's interests gained credence as disillusionment from the war grew. This idea is now being reinforced by former chairman of the Fed Alan Greenspan whose memoir hits bookstore shelves this month. "I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows -- the Iraq war is largely about oil," wrote the man dubbed "The Oracle." As long as such allegations came from Michael Moore they could be brushed aside but echoed by Greenspan, one of Washington’s most influential yet least controversial figures, it's time to expose the charge to serious scrutiny.

We'd be last to deny the toxic influence oil dependence has on America’s foreign policy, its international conduct and its selection of "friends and allies" in the Middle East. There is no doubt that since the 1945 meeting between President Roosevelt and Saudi King Ibn Saud the U.S. has been militarily committed to the stability of the Persian Gulf and time and again has used its muscle to guarantee the supply of oil from the region. But while there is no gainsaying America’s oil dependence, attributing oil motivation to every U.S. activity in the Persian Gulf is a gross extrapolation.

While proponents of "it’s the oil, stupid" view offer little evidence to support their claim, the evidence to the contrary is ample. Take for example the bedrock of the Administration's energy security strategy, the 2000 National Energy Policy Development Group, also knows as the Cheney Report. This policy paper, composed by no fewer than eight cabinet members, reflects the pre-9-11 mindset within the Bush White House on how to achieve energy security. Yet, it has almost no mention of Iraq and its vast oil reserves. The opposite is true: the report warns against concentration of world oil production in one region and calls for the U.S. to diversify its energy supply away from the Middle East.

Despite the involvement of Saudi nationals in 9-11 the Bush team not for one moment contemplated invading the oil rich Saudi Arabia. Instead it chose to invade Afghanistan, the only country in central Asia that doesn’t have oil. Furthermore, the administration decided to end the decades long American military presence in Saudi Arabia, a country that produces five times as much oil as Iraq, and move U.S. bases to Qatar, which produces one tenth as much as Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain which has essentially ran out of oil. A questionable move for someone whose supposed main driver was oil.

The Administration's actions prior to the 2003 invasion beg another question. At the time Iraq was hardly exporting any oil and was under a strict sanctions regime which prevented international companies from investing in its ailing oil industry. For profit driven companies like Exxon and Halliburton the sanctions were an impediment to business and they lobbied the Administration to review them. The last thing they wanted was the uncertainty associated with war. Yet, since his inauguration in early 2001 and up until the war start in March 2003 President Bush was persistent in maintaining the sanctions regime, providing competitive advantage to non-American companies bidding for Iraqi oil. Bush's decision to go to war against the interests of Big Oil rather than lifting the sanctions pokes a huge hole in the Iraq-is-about-oil narrative.

Prior to the war the U.S. hardly imported any oil from Iraq and oil stood on $30 a barrel.  Today, only four percent of U.S. oil imports come from Iraq and oil is at $80. With 160,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq America’s oil companies are nowhere to be seen. It is Russian and Chinese companies that are enjoying the spoils of war. If Greenspan is right and Iraq was truly about oil, then our failure there is even bigger than thought.

But he isn’t. Oil played at best a supporting role in the decision making process that led to the war. Greenspan’s statement has only one significance: it serves as a painful reminder of the Administration’s failure to provide a compelling explanation why we are in Iraq. And in the absence of such explanation even the Oracle can misconstrue.