The film observes various American and middle east actors running about with idealistic, nihilistic, greedy and personal agendas, bumping into each other sometimes at random and at others by design. But the single most important player is oil (which in real life, for reasons that are mystifying, is widely considered to be a tin-foil hat, loony-left explanation, even among liberals.) I don't normally consider myself a cynic, but on this topic, it's very hard not to be. In the final analysis, this really is a modern version of the Great Game. When we ask ourselves "why are we in Iraq?" it makes more sense to refine the question and ask whether we would be in Iraq if it weren't for oil. I think it's fairly obvious that we would not be. Terrorism, in the grand scheme of things, is not an existential threat no matter how hard the warbloggers wank. Invading Iraq was actually counter-productive to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism and may end up creating another Islamic state. Even the Bush administration knew that this was not an adequate rationale for invading Iraq so they pimped the WMD threat.The facile cynic in me says that it took Hollywood to wake up L.A.'s Digby to matters of energy. On the other hand, up to now, he has had his hands full going after the rapscallions dominating our political culture. And with that, he covers the ground with great panache.
As Dave Johnson is fond of saying, Digby! Digby! Digby!
Update: Through some sort of telepathy, I happened to have just read Elaine Supkis's recent blog entries at Culture of Life News while she concurrently commented on a recent post of mine. Please read her take on the Japan/US trade balance situation -- a very interesting case of downsizing of fiscal obligations matched against an irresponsible upsizing of fiscal irresponsibility. Guess which side we fall on?