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The recent adventure of Iraq only highlight the crumbling of capitalist civilization. Virtually every nation in the world deplores the invasion of Kuwait, they stand united by a single principle: money. This adventure in far away lands is deeply rooted in the deepening U.S. economic crisis; this will become more obvious as the crisis progresses.
a large scale war between the U.S and Iraq is possible but not likely. It is more likely that the present police action will continue indefinitely. This would not come from George Bush's humanitarianism but because of the great benefits to American capitalism of a new (mini) cold war.
To escape the "Vietnam Syndrome," the rhetoric of this crisis likes to seem brutally honest. "We are in the Gulf to get oil to run our cars." There are two ways this argument is still dishonest.
First, there is still the big lie that everyone is benefiting from this society. Most people don't benefit from cars, TV, or microwave ovens. Instead, they need their cars simply to go to work. They need TV to distract themselves after work. And they need microwave ovens to prepare quick, tasteless meals between work and TV. Initially, when they look at the gulf crisis, people can only think about the result of losing their cars. Eventually, we must question the need for absurd machines to destroy the biosphere while transporting us to dull, useless activities.
Second, the U.S. probably wants the price of oil to stay high and wants the crisis to continue as long as possible. This serves as a smoke screen for the decrease in wages/increase in unemployment that capital needs to put through anyway. It allows Texas oil producers to get back some of the money they lost when oil crashed a few years back and it allows the Pentagon to stop all talk of a peace dividend.
Beyond all this, the vague crisis mentality makes us vulnerable any imaginable manipulations, from recent cuts in Medicare onward. Today, every country in the world is going through an endless series of crises and "austerity measures" - wage cuts, price hikes and corrupt schemes. The Persian Gulf crisis gives this decaying civilization an enemy out there to blame its condition on. The possibilities are endless...
Beware of manipulation,
repeat...