STEPHEN PELLETIÈRE, Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Gulf (Westport, Conn., and London: Praeger, 2001). Pp. 250. $69.95 cloth.

Extract

This is a book whose title invites the reader. Stephen Pelletière, a professor of national-security affairs at the U.S. Army War College and an intelligence officer since 1982, has covered the Iran–Iraq War and the subsequent Gulf War. For this reason, the reader who picks up this book may expect to find some firsthand accounts, hitherto untapped documents, or a new analytical approach that might shed light on how the struggle for oil has influenced the strategies of the various parties involved in these conflicts.