Yet somehow no one looted the oil ministry.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

I never once said that tourism would support the Iraqi economy, that's just you putting words in someone's mouth, in typical fashion.

My point was that there's more to Iraq than oil and economy. Should we protect only the office to an oil ministry that might not have even been all that honest with its records and book keeping anyway? What makes their office more valuable than any other office?

And why should we think so lowly of these people, so poorly, to assume that these ignorant, backward people could OBVIOUSLY do nothing other than pump oil for the West...? Obviously I'm being a bit extreme, and likewise putting words in YOUR mouth, but what's good for the goose....

And Saudi Arabia is a terrible example. The top level of their society sit back and profit off of oil because it's how THEY can prosper, not how everyone in their country can. Maybe their people would excel at something else, produce much else, but we won't truly know with that existing government, will we?

So the answer is this: Make all of Iraq dependent upon a fossil fuel, allow every other possible resource go unprotected, because clearly, all these Arabs can do is pump out black gold, right?