Since this has been debunked many other times, I'll let others do the talking:

Originally Posted by Source

6. Oil!

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...anson/page/0/2
Of course, this ignores the issue of WMDs, Saddam Hussein's human rights violations and his harboring of terrorists, the public fury and renewed emphasis on international threats following 9/11, etc. But yes, the US did it for the Iraqi oil that the US don't plan on ever using.

Literally none of those are examples of the US "invading" except for the first gulf war. Neither are they examples of the US attempting to destabilize the Middle East. You would do far better to cite the war in Afghanistan, but to frame that as the "US attempting to destabilize the region" is, I think, deliberately obtuse and silly.

EDIT: Unnecessary ad hominem removed. Discussion could use some more politeness.

Arglax Moderated Message:

Hi, thank you for your politeness. I moved these posts to a new thread because they were good discussion material but not related to Egypt anymore.

Don't misconstrue the conspiracy argument. The argument is that USA invaded Iraq since they were the only independent oil seller and were going to sell oil in currencies other than USD. The destabilisation of Egypt was to prevent a unified African currency forming which would once again sideline the USD. Or so the story goes.

It's really kind of catch 22 to argue against it, because of course if it's clandestine then it wouldn't seem like the correct answer. It's not really possible to determine whether USA invaded Iraq for their stated reasons or for ulterior reasons.

I praise you for this, keep up the good work.

As Gorman already pointed out, the US doesn't destabilise or invade a country because it has oil reserves which the US wants, it's because these countries want to sell oil for other currencies than the dollar. A quick summary of a thread I made earlier, but was for some reason deleted:

1945: After WW2, the US dollar was set as the world reserve currency which means that basic goods such as oil, wheat, ... were all priced in dollars on the international market. All of this paper money was printed by the US, no presses left the country. Of course, this gave the US a significant advantage on the market. The US could, in theory, print its own money and trade it off for goods on the international market. To prevent this, the US promised to all nations that their dollars would be exchangable for gold at a rate of 1234.5 dollars per kilo. This is the Bretton Woods system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

1970s: It becomes clear that the US has pumped massive amounts of money into the Vietnam war, but conditions for Average Joe aren't deteriorating in the homeland. Some countries suspect that the US has been printing out their own money without having the necessary gold in stock.
1971: France has enough and decides to exchange all of its money into gold by the rate which everyone agreed on in '45. Nixon refuses. Not only does he refuses France their gold, he just scraps the whole Bretton Woods system. Nobody can exchange the dollar for gold anymore. The dollar has, essentially, become nothing but a piece of paper (or cotton, if you will). The USA had effectively robbed the whole western world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock

Now why is the USA still used as a currency today? Why didn't the allies just abolish the dollar after this terrible scandal hit the news?
After the Nixon Shock, Nixon began traveling all oil-exporting countries, beginning with Saudi-Arabia. He offered them this: 1) you only accept dollars anymore and 2) All the profit you make goes back to the US, in exchange for military protection. All of them agreed. This is how Nixon kept the "artificial dollar" running: he created the demand for it himself.
So what you have now: Everybody needs the US dollar if they want oil. But the dollar isn't actually worth anything and the US can just go on and print it for themselves. Now all nations need to send physical goods to the US in return for an imaginary currency.

1996: Iraq is recovering from the gulf war. The "Oil For Food Programme" is started. Nations can now buy oil in exchange for physical goods such as well, food. Basically they can now buy oil for something that isn't a dollar. This was bad news for the US, and in 2003 Iraq was invaded. What was the first thing that happened after the war had ended? The OFFP was abolished and nobody could buy oil for anything other than the dollar anymore, despite an economical loss compared to the OFFP for the country itself.
http://www.economist.com/node/2618260
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme

2008: Iran: something I'm sceptical out myself, haven't done enough research yet: the "2008 Submarine Cable Disruption": damage to submarine communication cables was caused. Some say this is because the US wanted to prevent Iran from selling Oil for Gold/Yen. Well, Iran did it anyway and they received some sanctions by the US (which they completely ignored, they're still selling oil for gold today). Problems I have with this "theory": cuts in cables happen all the time, and if the US really wanted to stop it, they terribly failed at that, they could've been more efficient and have done something else. The cause of the cuts is still unsure, they were probably caused by bad weather or ships' anchors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_su...ble_disruption

2011: Libya is in a civil war. Rebels are supported by the US, the regime by Russia. Gaddhaffi wanted to establish a Pan-African dinar, basically a pure gold currency. He wanted to sell oil for this currency: oil for gold. Gaddhaffi was soon executed by the rebels.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72T6H220110330

2013: Civil war in Syria, rebels supported by the US, regime by Russia. Syria has a mutual defense agreement with Iran. Syria itself hasn't tried to sell oil for gold yet, but Iran, which is preparing for war now, has.

I use Wikipedia as a source because it's good if you want a quick summary of a major event in a short glimpse. If you don't trust wikipedia as a valid source, just google the topic at hand, you'll be sure to find other, more trustworthy (and lengthy) sources that will summarize the facts for you.

Because we think we are high and mighty and should worry about other peoples shit, America needs to worry about their own citizens and not other countries. Plain and simple.

Arglax Moderated Message:

I'd like to see more factual evidence and actual sources rather than your own opinion of "Because we have illusions of grandeur" + some material to back up your notion of "America shouldn't interfere with other countries". Opinions are fine. They just need to be backed up with some material.

Means of transportation and communication has a evolved since the world wars.
We're in an age where we can get almost anywhere within a day, I think it only makes sense if we try to make peace with other countries with immoral ideas instead of wiping them off the face of the planet, which most countries seem to forget America has the ability to do and not I'm not saying America is moral either, but quite frankly they seem to be doing better off than those other countries stupid enough to fuel the Endless War known as religion.

And I'm pretty sure you'd want Earth in the future to be a peaceful where you can go to another country that isn't war torn and poor and on sight will have beef with an American.

Were also on the verge of Earth Language or what we like to call English. So before we learn our language around the planet, there's got to be some
peace first.

So America is not "wiping countries off the face of the planet" right now? They're making peace?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._United_States

I don't think anyone has forgotten that America is the most powerful nation in the world. History shows that they get what they want, whatever they want even if everyone discourages it.
Source: Iraq War

This isn't about which country does better, this isn't about the influence of religion on a state, it's about America interfering in the Middle East.

I want peace, for sure. But what's the "country that isn't war torn and poor and on sight will have beef with an Amercan" about? Isn't it the Americans who interfere with local wars there and leave the country behind like a mess? Maybe that's the reason the inhabitants of the region will "have beef" with Americans?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War

Not even a clue what this is supposed to signify. Also, this isn't a lingua franca discussion (if such a thing is even possible);

I am struggling to comprehend why this is not totally obvious to all of you. America does whatever it needs to in order to secure their interests around the world, whether it be becoming allies with a tyrant or taking out whoever is in opposition of what the United States wants to do.

Stupid thread is stupid.

Arglax Moderated Message:

If you're amazed people don't understand you, why don't you add some material to back your claims up and explain it to them?

Evidence of the obvious is not required. I am not amazed people don't understand me, i'm amazed people are like "durr why does america interfere with other countries."

Arglax Moderated Message:

Wee are convinced of different theories and we're trying to discuss the matter as to come to a valid conclusion. You're skipping the whole 'discussion' part and jump to your own conclusion without even attempting to prove your post. As an lmod I can't let that happen and if you don't join the discussion and post some material, I'll have to delete your post.

There is no need for discussion. There are blatant facts that cannot be ignored, anything other than that is pure speculation. If you want sources, here:
http://wais.stanford.edu/USA/us_supp...ators8303.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa
It isn't only the middle east. This is how imperialism works, what do you expect?

The US has the nasty habit of never leaving alone a country it has fought for or against. If you look back 40 years to when the Soviets attempted to expand their influence over middle-eastern countries (most notably Afghanistan), we were pretty much obligated to intervene. Our relationship with the middle-east has been pretty convoluted since then.
This isn't to say, however, that we've only intervened for political reasons. Iran is the perfect counter-example. We are very much hated in Iran for how we supported the Shah, who tried to nationalize the oil economy. It's safe to say the US was very interested in keeping the Shah in power for economic reasons.
So to answer OP, the US interferes in the middle east principally because it has interfered before and now our politics are intertwined, but also because we're prone to look out for our economic interests.

Right, and the issues being discussed here is exactly what American interests was the United States serving when they invaded Iraq.
This was originally a reply to the idea that the United States invaded Iraq to preserve economic interests, e.g. to control the production and sale of Iraqi oil.

Nobody is debating whether America does what's best for America, because, as you so clearly put it, that is totally obvious, though lamentable. However, I am making the case that oil as a concern of the US government was secondary to numerous other factors. The war was not to take Iraq's oil.

I completely agree with this. I've never been a supporter of the Iraq war, far from it, but I do understand that we deposed and ultimately lead to the hanging of a violent, genocidal, theocratic dictator. This should have been our only mission, and it should have been done back when Bush Sr. intervened in Kuwait in the early 90's. It is regrettable that the US's actions in the middle east have been so destabilizing, and quite frankly, misguided (e.g Bush Jr. using false information that Iraq had WMDs). The war has by no means been an effective or efficient one, but it's not the evil oil-grubbing plot many people make it out to be.
Another factor in play, aside from oil and deposing a dictator, is terrorism. After all, 9/11 sparked the whole thing. I completely disagree with how our government has gone about dealing with terrorism, but that's a different discussion. What I will say, however, is that even in dealing with terrorism the US is still keen to its economic interests. Saudi Arabia is haven to many anti-American and anti-democracy organizations. If the US is serious about its "war on terror" it needs to focus on Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, we're too far in bed with them and too reliant on them to really do anything.
It's a sad state, but it's not what many people make it out to be.