offered the French company TotalFinaElfexclusive rights to the largest of Iraqs oil fields, the Majoon, which wouldmore than double the companys entire output at a single stroke." Such adevelopment would catapult TotalFinaElf from the second ranks into the firstranks of the major oil firms. The basic structure of the world oil industrywould not change, but the sharing of power and profits among the leaders wouldbe altered. Thus for ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and the other traditional"majors" in the industry, access to Iraq is a defensive as well as anoffensive goal. ("Regime change" in Iraq will not necessarily providethe legal basis for cancellation of contracts signed between the Hussein regimeand various oil companies. International law would not allow a new regimesimply to turn things over to the U.S. oil companies. "Should regimechange happen, one thing is guaranteed," according to the Guardian, "shortly afterwards therewill be the mother of all legal battles.")Oil companiesare big and powerful. The biggest, ExxonMobil, had 2002 profits of $15 billion,more than any other corporation, in the United States or in the world.Chevron-Texaco came in with $3.3 billion in 2002 profits, and Phillips-Toscogarnered $1.7 billion. British Petroleum-Amoco-Arco pulled in $8 billion, whileRoyal Dutch/Shell Group registered almost $11 billion. Firms of this magnitudehave a large role affecting the policies of their governments, and, for thatmatter, the governments of many other countries. With theascendancy of the Bush-Cheney team to the White House in 2000, perhaps therelationship between oil and the government became more personal, but it wasnot new. Big oil has been important in shaping U.S. foreign policy since theend of the 19th century (to say nothing of its role in shaping other policyrealms, particularly environmental regulation). From 1914, when the Marineslanded at Mexicos Tampico Bay to protect U.S. oil interests, to theCIA-engineered overthrow of the Mosadegh government in Iran in 1953, to theclose relationship with the oppressive Saudi monarchy through the past 70years, oil and the interests of the oil companies have been central factors inU.S. foreign policy. Iraq today is one more chapter in a long story.The LargerIssueYet in Iraqtoday, as in many other instances of the U.S. governments internationalactions, oil is not the whole story. The international policies of the U.S. governmentare certainly shaped in significant part by the interests of U.S.-based firms,but not only the oil companies. ExxonMobil may have had the largest 2002profits, but there are many additional large U.S. firms with internationalinterests: Citbank and the other huge financial firms; IBM, Microsoft, andother information technology companies; General Motors and Ford; Merck, Pfizerand the other pharmaceutical corporations; large retailers like MacDonalds andWal-Mart (and many more) depend on access to foreign markets and foreignsources of supply for large shares of their sales and profits.The U.S.government (like other governments) has long defined its role in internationalaffairs as protecting the interests of its nationals, and by far the largestinterests of U.S. nationals abroad are the interests of these large U.S.companies. The day-to-day activities of U.S. embassies and consular officesaround the world are dominated by efforts to further the interests ofparticular U.S. firmsfor example, helping the firms establish local markets,negotiate a countrys regulations,