Kevin Phillips, the author of American Theocracy, postulates that there are five political and policy endgames in play today.  Let us examine some of what he as to say about the Resource War endgame.
 
Depletion of resources and rising demand by other nations are of vital concern, and spawns the first endgame that the author deals with.
 
“The first was a rising preoccupation on the part of oil geologists and among some thinkers in Washington that not only had American oil production peaked but global oil production outside of OPEC might be within five to ten years of doing so.”  (Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy, p. 87)
 
“This peak-scenario pessimism squared with individual companies’ oil and gas exploration reports.” (Ibid, p. 89)
 
This scenario is foundational to the vision for the author’s first endgame: Resource War.
 
“In 2004 Michael Klare, a theorist of the global resumption of resource wars, summed up the increasingly obvious: oil, no longer a mere commodity, had become a national security matter, thereby falling under the purview of the Department of Defense and warranting protection ’at any cost, including the use of military force.’  Oil-premised military commitments, he argued, were being conflated with the war on terror.”   (Ibid, p. 84)
 
Sound familiar?  The events of 9/11 gave the corporatists the permission they needed to put their agenda into overdrive.  But the planning spanned decades.  Let’s step back and look at the immediate precursor to this fateful day.
 
The decade of the nineties was a transformational decade.  During that time much of the groundwork for today’s imperial adventures was laid.  Although that transformation had great political implications, much of it occurred in the private sector.
 
“In 1992, after the Gulf War, then secretary of defense Cheney gave Halliburton, the energy services company, a contract to study the privatization of some Pentagon functions.”  (Ibid, p. 80)
 
1993 – Following Bush Senior’s defeat, Cheney briefly pondered a 1996 presidential run.
1995 – Cheney took over as CEO of Halliburton.
1998 – Cheney doubled Halliburton’s size with the purchase of Dresser Industries.
2000 – Cheney’s political/defense/energy connections positioned him as Bush’s running mate.
 
Halliburton, and Cheney, were now a major federal “energy war” contractor.
 
“As the dust of the first Gulf War settled, oil companies from Texas to China began wondering which among them would gain access [to Iraq’s vast oil reserves] when the United Nations sanctions were lifted.  By 1995 The Wall Street Journal and other publications were reporting the American fear: that if Saddam Hussein could escape UN sanctions and give Iraq’s lush concessions to non-Anglo-American companies, he could realign the global oil business.” (Ibid, p. 76)
 
And as we shall see in subsequent articles, Saddam was very interested in doing just that and undermining the U.S. Dollar as the world’s reserve currency by trading in Euros or some other currency.  As you can imagine, we weren’t very happy about that possibility.
 
“So long as the United States and Britain could keep these sanctions in place, using allegations concerning weapons of mass destruction, Saddam could not implement his own plan to extend large-scale oil concessions (estimated to be worth $1.1 trillion) to French, Russian, Chinese and other oil companies.” (Ibid, p. 76)
 
Hmmm... Puts a few things into perspective, doesn’t it?  It explains a lot, from the Neocon’s rush to war to the French, Russian and Chinese opposition to that attack, and a lot of things in between if you stop and think about it. (Ibid, p. 76)
 
“As the buzzards circled, Iraq became the prize piece needed to complete three interrelated Washington jigsaw puzzles: the rebuilding of Anglo-American oil-company reserves, transformation of Iraq into an oil protectorate-c**-military base, and reinforcement of the global hegemony of the U.S. dollar.  This brings us to the next critical set of maps, the ones used in 2001 by Vice President Dick Cheney’s National Energy Policy Development Group to mesh America’s energy needs with a twenty-first-century national-security blueprint.  This group pursued a mandate, in collaboration with the National Security Council, to deal with rogue states and ‘actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.’
 
“Never intended for public scrutiny, the three Middle East maps and their supporting documents came to light in the summer of 2003 under a federal court order.” (Ibid, pp. 76, 77)
 
Shed’s some light on Cheney’s and the administration’s fierce effort to keep the National Energy Policy /development Group's membership secret doesn’t it?  To say nothing of the rush to attack Iraq.  It begins to look a little like the Bush Regime’s Iraq attack had little to do with Iraq and a whole lot to do with Iraqi oil falling into the right hands.
 
That impression is reinforced by the immediate objectives of the troops entering Iraq.
 
“In Baghdad’s Iraqi national Museum, left wide open to looters in 2003 by careless U.S. military planners, dozens of wall maps explained Iraq’s achievements as the cradle of world civilization … the museum and the National Library were world-class institutions with unique collections.
 
“Even so, the first major building to be surrounded and occupied by American soldiers was the one housing truly vital maps and artifacts: the Iraqi Oil Ministry… World opinion had little difficulty in mistaking U.S. priorities.” (Ibid, p. 75)
 
There’s a lot more in the book, but that is a skeletal summary of some of the important events and behind-the-scenes motivations leading up to our garrisoning of Iraq.  Given this information, how soon do you think we will be leaving Iraq?  Do you think that is even in the corporatist gameplan?