Already published on 6 Billion Brains, and an interesting read: America went to war to .. safeguard the American economy by returning the second largest oil reserve (Iraq) to trading oil in US dollars. Keeping the dollar as the exclusive oil currency is the only way "to protect the American way of life" in the most debt-ridden nation on earth.. (Not Oil, But Dollars vs. Euros, Geoffrey Heard, GlobalPolicy.org)