WAR ON IRAK

Business Week: It's Not "All About Oil," But...
Victory in Iraq would reshuffle the global players with big stakes in the country's oil fields
When tens of thousands of protesters opposed to a U.S. war in Iraq descended on Washington on Jan. 18, you could see the placards everywhere: "No U.S. Blood for Oil." Convinced that a war would be nothing more than a thinly veiled resource grab instigated by Big Oil, activists vow to follow up on Feb. 4 by staging protests at gas stations across the country.

Fringe thinking? Hardly. The suspicion that George W. Bush's showdown with Saddam Hussein is "all about oil" isn't just a fixation of the American left. It's gaining adherents among the European intelligentsia and in the Arab world. "Washington says it wants to eliminate any threat of interruption of the flow of oil, to ensure that it will be accessible to U.S. oil companies," said British Labor Party politician Alice Mahon on Jan. 22. "A different and more compliant government in Iraq would make that possible."