Is Big Oil Lubricating the Drive to War?

Jeremy Rifkin examines news coverage of the Bush Administration's war drive on Iraq. "One can't help but be surprised by the almost total silence on the question of the 'oil connection,'" he writes. "Is it possible that United States political leaders and reporters, columnists, editors and producers are so naive that they really believe there is no other White House agenda in the Middle East except the one that the administration is extolling? Do they really believe that oil plays no role in the strategic thinking of the inner circles at the White House? ... It might be that Europe and the rest of the world are simply wrong. But to have virtually no public discussion in the United States of what the rest of the world suspects is the White House's real reason for wanting to depose Saddam makes me feel that there is indeed more to Bush's Iraq obsession than we are being told."