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Originally Posted by arsenal
Democracy was / is the ultimate goal yes.
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Some believe the goal was to establish military bases in the middle east to overlook the key countries that hold a huge percentage of the oil reserves left in the world.
Democracy was a talking point but how can anyone say that was their goal originally when their excuse to go in was WMD? I'm sure they would have loved the great press if they had successfully rescued Iraq and set up a stable democracy, would have given them more leverage to do similar operations in other areas of the world. The US's goals in Iraq were/are not as simple nor idealistic as democracy. Oil, defense contracts, economy of war, protection of Isreal, opening up the country for multi-national corportations to exploit it and help American stockholders get richer, flexing it's muscle to remind the world of it's military fortitude, etc would certainly seem like other probable factors. Of course it makes it a great PR reason for going in and would give a great PR reason in the future to try and set up sympathetic regimes for the US and multi-national corporate interests in other areas of the world.
If Democracy were truly the single overriding goal then the US would be responsible for many nations who are still under totalitarian regimes. It's not a coincedence that Iraq happens to be in the centre of the middle east, one of the biggest oil rich areas in the world. I don't see them jumping to liberate the rest of the world from brutal regimes, only in the countries of strategic importance for the US's interests.