The authors eliminate the notion that the energy and oil prospects in Iraq played an influential role

Energy companies were fighting against the neoconservatives, and were lobbying to trade with Saddam.
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/adkj4/shell_wins_iraq_oil_field_rights_yep_looks_like/c0h21gm Bush, the dim-witted follower of other people's ideas, was caught between the Neocon's fantasy of crushing Israeli enemies like Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc. and Colin Powell's Gulf War I like plan for an exclusive focus on Osama bin Laden and his network, Al Qaeda, and the expansive American courtship of most Arab countries - which made Israel unhappy.

By the way...

Saddam Hussein's surprise acceptance of "unconditional" United Nations weapons inspections put Israel on the hot seat, forcing it into the open as the only nation actively supporting the Bush administration's goal of Iraqi regime change.

Clinton and Iraq.

Perle and Feith, along with future Bush administration officials Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, signed the February 1998 "open letter" to President Clinton, in which they listed nine policy steps that were in the "vital national interest" of the United States. The first of these was "Recognize a provisional government of Iraq based on the principles and leaders of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) that is representative of all the peoples of Iraq." In October 1998, under intense lobbying pressure from the neocons, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the "Iraqi Liberation Act," which provided money and U.S. legitimacy for Chalabi's INC, along with six other exile groups.

I think this dismissal is crucial. The energy companies like Halliburton have far more influence in Washington than any pro-Israeli interest group.

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/k7l2g/1993_so_theyre_looking_for_a_new_explanation_in/c2i3jd4

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/djo8z/why_is_the_worlds_worst_violence_ignored_congo/c10q31o

[The politics of sanctions against Iran 1979-2000's. How US companies won, then lost their position to AIPAC (PDF)](http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~sasanf/MES101Documents/ThePoliticsOfUSEconSanctionsEconLit.pdf)

Bronfman leads lobby against Conoco deal with Iran

Wall Street Journal Jun 18, 1996. pg. A24, 1 pgs

The measure, which the House is expected to approve today with the Clinton administration’s blessing, infuriates some of the U.S.’s closest European allies. Last week in an undiplomatic outburst, the European Union’s top executive turned to President Clinton during a joint news conference to complain that it wasn’t “justifiable or effective for one country to impose its tactics on another.”

But for Aipac, known formally as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the measure isn’t just a way to fight international terrorism. It offers the chance for a comeback of sorts, a badly needed way to burnish its own image. Aipac isn’t a political-action committee; it is the chief U.S. lobbying group for Israel and is financed by private fund-raising in this country.

Aipac staffers insist that it is business as usual — they are working on Capitol Hill to promote Israel’s interests. But the group’s interest in Iranian terrorism at least partly reflects a recent dilemma. Over the past few years, Israel’s active pursuit of peace with its Arab neighbors and warm ties with Washington made Aipac’s mission less clear. The group no longer needed to mobilize its troops to thwart U.S. arms sales to Arab states or vilify Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Instead, American Jews were divided over issues such as the future of Jerusalem and the prospect of a Palestinian state.

“The consensus surrounding Israel has diminished and this, among other things, has reduced somewhat the centrality of Aipac in the American Jewish community,” says Benjamin Ginsberg, a Johns Hopkins University professor who writes on American-Jewish politics.

Aipac’s funk began in 1992 when Israeli voters elected the Labor Party’s Yitzhak Rabin as prime minister, ending 15 years of dominance by the hard-line Likud bloc. On a visit here, Mr. Rabin met privately with Aipac’s top leaders, many of whom are conservative and cozy with Likud. The new prime minister read them the riot act, gruffly telling Aipac officials that he would conduct foreign policy directly with the White House and that they should stay out of the way.

Shocked and searching for a way to remain relevant, Aipac hit upon the perfect vehicle — Sen. Alfonse D’Amato. Since 1993, the New York Republican had been offering sweeping Iran sanctions bills. Despite the general animosity toward Tehran, the bills languished in Congress. Aipac recognized that all that was needed was an organized effort to refine the legislation and push it through. The lobbying group decided to become the locomotive.

When the Republicans took over Congress in early 1995 and Sen. D’Amato became chairman of the Banking Committee, the bill’s fortunes — and Aipac’s — were about to change. The administration regularly attacked Iran’s support of international terrorism and urged its allies not to do business with Tehran. Then, thanks partly to an Aipac research paper shared with the White House, the administration learned to its embarrassment that U.S. oil companies were Iran’s biggest customers by far.

In March of last year, to show its resolve, the White House intervened to stop Conoco Inc., the energy unit of DuPont Co., from going ahead with plans to help develop two Iranian oil fields. But casting the spotlight on Iran also gave Sen. D’Amato’s bill momentum. Soon, the administration was conducting separate discussions with the senator’s office and with Aipac.

Sen. D’Amato’s bill focused on imposing U.S. penalties on foreign companies for trading with Iran. (The bill also includes sanctions against Libya, though Iran remains Aipac’s principle focus.) But the administration, believing such a sweeping bill would violate international trade law, suggested another approach: it would punish foreign companies that in the future invested at least $40 million in Iran’s energy sector, which is vital to its economy. The sanctions would include barring U.S. Export-Import Bank support on sales to those foreign companies and would ban such companies from receiving loans of more than $10 million from a U.S. financial institution. The administration hoped such an approach would be less offensive to America’s allies. Aipac, recognizing the broader appeal of such a measure, signed on. So did Sen. D’Amato. The bill moved through the Senate with no opposition.

Next, Aipac prepared for a tougher fight in the House, where powerful interests traditionally oppose so-called secondary boycotts. In a world-wide campaign closely coordinated with Sen. D’Amato, Aipac and the New York Republican helped raise the stakes by publicizing pending business deals involving foreign firms and Iran.

In February of this year, for instance, the Australian Jewish Review published an article saying that Broken Hill Proprietary Co., Australia’s largest company, was about to sign a $1 billion deal with Iran. A few days later, the Australian Financial Review’s Washington correspondent wrote a similar report, including a letter to the firm by Sen. D’Amato. The company, under pressure, denied that such a deal was pending.

Meanwhile, the House International Relations Committee approved a bill that included certain trade sanctions and was tougher than Sen. D’Amato’s measure. But GOP Rep. Bill Archer of Texas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee that also has jurisdiction, strongly opposed trade sanctions.

With the two House committees at loggerheads, Aipac played the key role of go-between, sitting with Ways and Means staffers in the office of Thelma Askey, staff director of the panel’s trade subcommittee, to try to resolve differences. In recent weeks, Aipac won support for a measure favored by the International Relations Committee that could lower the investment threshold to $20 million after a year if other nations don’t agree to join the U.S. effort against Iran. But Aipac failed in efforts to extend sanctions to banks that finance energy deals in Iran. The Senate is expected to accept the House’s version of the final bill.

Ironically, the recent election victory of Israel’s hard-line Likud party, which is likely to stall peace talks, could create tensions between the U.S. and Israel — and re-energize Aipac’s basic mission. “If Clinton tries to put pressure on Israel,” says Morris Amitay, a former executive director of Aipac, “he’ll find that Aipac will be working with a lot of people in Congress, particularly the Republican majority, who will be happy to take on the White House.”