IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN offers a different theory behind the warmongering. He suspects it’s not for oil nor for “liberation,” but plain ol’ warmongering for warmongering’s sake:

“The hawks… believe that the world position of the United States has been steadily declining since at least the Vietnam War. They believe that the basic explanation for this decline is the fact that U.S. governments have been weak and vacillating in their world policies. (They believe this is even true of the Reagan administration, although they do not dare to say this aloud.) They see a remedy, a simple remedy. The U.S. must assert itself forcefully and demonstrate its iron will and its overwhelming military superiority. Once that is done, the rest of the world will recognize and accept U.S. primacy in everything. The Europeans will fall into line. The potential nuclear powers will abandon their projects. The U.S. dollar will once again rise supreme. The Islamic fundamentalists will fade away or be crushed. And we shall enter into a new era of prosperity and high profit.

“We need to understand that they really believe all of this, and with a great sense of certitude and determination. That is why all the public debate, worldwide, about the wisdom of launching a war has been falling on deaf ears. They are deaf because they are absolutely sure that everyone else is wrong, and furthermore that shortly everyone else will realize that they have been wrong.

“It is important to note one further element in the self-confidence of the hawks. They believe that a swift and relatively easy military victory is at hand – a war of weeks, not of months and certainly not of still longer. The fact that virtually all the prominent retired generals in the U.S. and the U.K. have publicly stated their doubts on this military assessment is simply ignored. The hawks (almost all civilians) do not even bother to answer them.”