Man, you're really lagging
Numerous people (including former CIA Director R. James Woolsey) believe we are currently in WWIV. The cold war was WWIII, according to this view.
No one is
really making an effort to mask whether our recent conflicts are about oil (more acurrately, though, this is a quest for resources--oil is only one of them; we have military bases around the world and corporations sponsering wars throughout various developing nations).
Neocons are fairly up front about their intentions. The media might cast aspersions on "lefties" and their claims, but scholars and policy wonks aren't disputing with one another about the goals--just the means.
The people drafting these plans are by no means unintelligent--to assume that would be a fatal error to the progressive movement. Of course, whatever is going on, it seems to be working. People are sitting around arguing over this, that, and everything else. What they aren't doing is demanding transparency from their elected officials. Usually the accused does the answering, but here we have average person after average person defending the administration's actions without any semblence of knowledge as to what drives it. That's not to say the left has a monopoly on the truth, but it is to say that when a tough question is leveled at the accused they should be the ones to answer the charge, not my next door neighbor who knows, at most, as much as me.
I've written quite a bit, so I'd like to leave this question for the thread starter:
Whether you agree with my assessment or not, why would you expect to pay less money for gasoline granting the point that this war is about oil?