I’ll take your points one-by-one ::

The Total point is that surely, given that France was famously opposed to the war, if this were a “reward the cronies, hand out the spoils” moment, then 1/4 of the spoils wouldn’t have been handed to a French company.

A lot has happened in the past few years. Sarkozy has made it clear, with his grave warnings to Iran and cosy meetings with Bush, that he is back in the fold. France has done much to repair its relations with Washington – you may consider Total’s contract a tummy tickler. Total is also one of the 6 daddies in the oil world – regardless of their Frenchness, they remain club members.

And no, the war wasn’t about oil: in the environment in 2002 where the war was planned, energy security was at best a niche concern and not one of the key worries of the US administration, and oil prices were low.

Ever since the OPEC crisis, Oil has remained a top 3 concern. Regardless of the oil price, America’s treasure has continued to flow into the Middle East and other oil-producing states. It has long-since been American policy to best massage the balance of payments. The Saudis played ball and set up development funds to use revenues to pay American corporations to build their infrastructure (as did the Shar’s Iran). The Saudi regime has received a “free-pass” from the Americans on various Human Rights issues, and the Saudi proclivity for financing radical Islamic schools in Pakistan, Indonesia, and beyond, has been ignored.

You may call the Iraq War(s) another Opium War (which was also directly a balance of payments war – British treasure lost through its addiction to Chinese tea). BTW, those who framed this war are not overly concerned with the nation’s balance of payments – at a national macro-economic level, but they sure want some of that money heading back to their own companies.

The war was partly an attempt by the guys who’d failed to persuade George H Bush to finish the invasion last time round to show they were right, partly an attempt to prop up the House of Saud vs Al Qaeda by allowing the Americans to move their Middle Eastern basis to Iraq, and partly a misguided attempt to spread democracy by force – think Cheney / Powell / Blair as examples of the three camps.

I’d agree with much of this. Certainly ego was a concern. I’d also add that the complex All-Star-father / loser-son relationship that exists between Bush 41 and 43 was a factor (going by interviews conducted with Bush when he was governor of Texas, he pin-pointed Iraq as his father’s albatross, one he would right).

I think Neo-conservative ideals were a useful crutch for Cheney and his corporate allies. Another useful tool in the narrative building, but dropped when it had served its use. So many neocon framers of the war saw they had been had, and fled.

But in the end, John, it’s always about oil. There is a very powerful, and vast industrial complex that controls much of America’s political class and its foreign policy. You know this, I’m sure. Oil represents the lubricant and the revenues for these companies. And I refer not just to those companies directly involved in pumping/refinery, I also refer to the massive engineering behemoths who have profited from contracts in oil-rich countries, underwritten by oil receipts. Companies very much intertwined with the Bush/Cheney set, and companies that have, are, and will continue to profit from this war.

And no, the war wasn’t about oil: in the environment in 2002 where the war was planned, energy security was at best a niche concern and not one of the key worries of the US administration, and oil prices were low.

The war was partly an attempt by the guys who’d failed to persuade George H Bush to finish the invasion last time round to show they were right, partly an attempt to prop up the House of Saud vs Al Qaeda by allowing the Americans to move their Middle Eastern basis to Iraq, and partly a misguided attempt to spread democracy by force – think Cheney / Powell / Blair as examples of the three camps. If anyone (aside from the SWP) cared about Iraq’s oil output, it certainly wasn’t a decision-clincher.

Are you going to make the case that it wasn’t about oil? (or is this just a hit and run comment?)

you missed out “French”, presumably because it defeats your point