For a while I’ve been wondering if the oil card would increasingly be played as a justification for America’s continued occupation of Iraq. Via TPM, we’ve got another example of it being used, this time by the head American honchos over there:

The Nevada Republican, who returned Tuesday from his fourth trip to Iraq, met with U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Iraqi Deputy President Tariq al-Hashimi and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.
“To a person, they said there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaida would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world if we leave,” Porter said Wednesday in a phone interview from Las Vegas.

I wonder how they came up with the $8 or $9 figure. I certainly hope Petraeus and Crocker aren’t sitting around doing economic analysis. I know oil supplies are tight, but $6/gallon is quite a price jump.
At any rate it should be pointed out that we don’t need 150,000 American troops in Iraq to protect the oil supply, if that’s our primary objective. There is middle ground between an all-out “surge” and completely abandoning the country.

• This can’t be good:
  

  The North-West Passage – the sea route running along the Arctic coastline of North America, normally perilously clogged with thick ice – is nearly ice-free for the first time since records began.

• Atrios, on Miss Teen South Carolina’s blond moment:
  

  I don’t know if she’s dumb as a stone or if she just understandably had a bit of a brain fart. . . Either way she’s just a young woman whose worst moment wasn’t appreciably worse than the regular outbursts of our commander in chief.

  Sadly true.

• Via TPM, this Seinfeld clip seems particularly relevant. Good thing Elaine didn’t have a wide “stance.”
  

Even though the Iraqi parliament and U.S. Congress have been on vacation, there’s been plenty of politico chatter regarding Iraq.
On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Karl Rove made a telling comment (emphasis added):

It is not longer acceptable to have a 1994 mind-set after September 11th. America needs to think and act differently. We face a brutal enemy who will kill the innocent for one purpose and that is to gain control of the Middle East and to use the leverage of oil to bring down the West, and to attack us again.

I know the administration has trotted out a series of justifications to occupy Iraq, but this is one of the newer rationales. It certainly wasn’t one when Bush launched the war. Back then, the alleged threat was that Saddam Hussein would help al Qaeda attack America. Why would he arm terrorists if they were intent on taking over Iraq’s oil fields? That’s counterintuitive.
Clearly the 2003 cause for war has long been forgotten. Back then “oil” was treated like a four letter word, only said publicly by extreme-left wing anti-war wackos. It will be interesting to see if it is used more and more openly now, as oil prices continue to rise. I think it will be.
Meanwhile, Senator Carl Levin visited Iraq and all but called for a change of government:

Declaring the government of Iraq “non-functional,” the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq’s parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.
“I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government,” Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.

Senator Levin is justified in criticizing Maliki, but I think this goes one step too far. If we are still maintaining the facade of Iraqi sovereignty (last time I checked we are), then we should generally let them run their own government. And if we aren’t happy about the way they are doing it, perhaps we should rethink the $9 billion/month we are spending there.
And yes, President Bush continues to be Bush. I wonder if he has completely thought through the Iraq/Vietnam analogy. I don’t think it means what he thinks it means.

Think back 10 or 15 years. The evil Soviet empire had recently collapsed. The United States stood alone as the world’s sole superpower, without military rival. At the time many people believed that America should be able to significantly reduce its military spending. After all, what country out there could seriously threaten us?
Fast forward a decade. Against that backdrop, how bizarre does this headline seem?

Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.
The Army’s 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

What a turnabout. The military machine which once stood without foe is now stretched too thin to maintain its current operations. And the real kicker is that the “enemy” that has exhausted our military capabilities did not attack us with nuclear weapons, battleships, or tanks. But instead launched its most deadly attack with knives and box cutters.
What a weird world.

• Tony Snow says he is going to quit his job as White House press secretary when his “money runs out.”  Snow’s salary is $168,000.  One would assume that he also gets comprehensive health insurance coverage, though that may be assuming too much with this administration.
• Fred Kaplan hammers Rudy Giuliani’s essay in Foreign Affairs.  Unsurprisingly, the essay’s main focus is the “War on Terror.”  Not much at all regarding trade, energy, China, or America’s relationship to the vast majority of countries.  I suspect Giuliani doesn’t want voters to dwell much on those bread and butter issues.
• “Pentagon Paid $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers”  One of the owners pleaded guilty to fraud today.  And we wonder how the Pentagon can spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
• Department of Homeland Security may require national parks visitors to present passports in states that don’t comply with “Real ID” program requirements.
• Ahh, Romney.  Not quite ready for prime time with respect to foreign policy.
• A stealth Fed rate cut?
• From the Department of 1990s Irony:

  It would almost be funny if so many people hadn’t been killed during the past four years.

  The disturbing thing is that Cheney, by virtue of his current support of this military action (which he once opposed), is deemed by many to be a person who understands the serious nature of the times we live in. In reality, Cheney’s public statements show he doesn’t understand anything that’s going on in Iraq.