EL 'ANALISTO' de política internacional de La Vanguardia, Xavier Batalla, ya ha dado varias pruebas de que no se entera demasiado de lo que habla, por mucho que pretenda descubrir supuestas claves de la geopolítica en libros de los que probablemente sólo ha leído alguna reseña escrita por otro.

Hoy vuelve a dar otra. Escribe hoy un artículo sobre el petróleo y Oriente Medio, y al leer esta frase ya no valía la pena seguir:

¿Y la invasión de Iraq? Alan Greenspan, presidente de la Reserva Federal desde 1987 hasta el 2006, ha escrito en su libro The Age of turbulence (2007) que "la primera causa de la guerra de Iraq fue el petróleo, no las armas de destrucción masiva".

Lo que es un claro ejemplo de oir campanas sin saber de dónde viene el sonido. La fase literal de Greenspan es:

"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

Que, traducido, viene a decir algo muy distinto: "me entristece que no sea políticamente conveniente reconocer lo que todo el mundo sabe: que la guerra de Iraq fue en buena parte por el petróleo". Significa que era el estar sentado sobre millones de barriles de petróleo era lo que hacía particularmente peligroso al psicópata de Saddam, ya que podía chantajear, sobornar y financiar todo tipo de iniciativas, como de hecho ocurrió. Y que eso indudablemente influyó en el cálculo coste/beneficio sobre la necesidad de derrocarlo.

Es algo que sabría cualquiera quien vaya sólo un poco más allá de slogans y citas y lea las cosas en su contexto, independientemente de la opinión que uno tenga sobre si la guerra de Iraq fue o no una buena idea. O cualquier periodista que se documente un poco, porque el mismo Greenspan se lo explicó bien clarito nada menos que a Bob Woodward

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been "essential" to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Greenspan, who was the country's top voice on monetary policy at the time Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, has refrained from extensive public comment on it until now, but he made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that "the Iraq War is largely about oil." In the interview, he clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy.

"I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in an interview Saturday, "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."

He said that in his discussions with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, "I have never heard them basically say, 'We've got to protect the oil supplies of the world,' but that would have been my motive." Greenspan said that he made his economic argument to White House officials and that one lower-level official, whom he declined to identify, told him, "Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil." Asked if he had made his point to Cheney specifically, Greenspan said yes, then added, "I talked to everybody about that."

Greenspan said he had backed Hussein's ouster, either through war or covert action. "I wasn't arguing for war per se," he said. But "to take [Hussein] out, in my judgment, it was something important for the West to do and essential, but I never saw Plan B" -- an alternative to war.