Greenspan, oil, and Osama bin Laden: Bernd Debusmann

(Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)

By Bernd Debusmann

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alan Greenspan, the anti-war U.S. left, virtually the entire Arab world, and Osama bin Laden have something in common: they think the war in Iraq is mainly about oil.

The former Federal Reserve chairman's view is expressed with such crystalline clarity, on page 463 of his just-published memoir, that it's hard to believe it comes from the same man whose convoluted utterances on the U.S. economy drove to the edge of despair market professionals paid to decipher them.

But there's nothing ambiguous about this: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

This is remarkable language from a life-long Republican deeply embedded in a Washington establishment whose members, from either party, do not find it convenient to ascribe selfish motives to the U.S. use of force.

Military intervention is acceptable, of course, to remove tyrants, spread democracy, bring freedom to the oppressed, or save the world as we know it from annihilation by weapons of mass destruction.

Among the Washington power elite, publicly using the word "oil" in connection with the war in Iraq is a bit like talking about bodily functions at a formal dinner party.

It is best avoided, which made Greenspan's statement all the more startling.