Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume IV, Number 11 April 18 - 24, 2004 Quezon City, Philippines |
Oil
And the Americanization of the Middle East Book
Review: Oil Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda “Oil
and Power” unravels the truths behind the war on Iraq, beginning with the
divide-and-rule strategy of the British Empire to subjugate Iraq and other large
chunks of the Middle East at the turn of the 20th century and its
replacement by U.S. neocolonialism in the 1950s. In the book, Everest clearly
lays down the vital interests that had driven colonial powers led by the British
and French empire-builders to covet Iraq and the rest of the Arab world: oil and
the practical value that makes the region the key to a global empire. By
Bobby Tuazon Next
to a battle lost, the worst thing is a battle won. One
year after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power following the U.S. invasion and
occupation of his country, U.S.-led coalition forces are themselves locked in a
guerilla war that has seen more than 600 Americans and thousands of civilians
killed. The Iraqis – 50,000 of whom, according to independent estimates, were
killed during the war last year – are themselves caught between the continued
fierce fighting and the sheer terror of recovering their lives destroyed by the
war. Next
to rebuilding their lives, nobody knows what recovery could be possible to bring
back the historic relics and museums destroyed. U.S. air strikes made sure that
Iraq’s history that included one of the world’s first great civilizations
would forever be buried. After all, the war was about burying the satanic evil
of Saddam and giving the Iraqis a new lease on life. Indeed,
there’s a sense of reconstruction going on in Iraq, as George W. Bush, Jr. had
promised. But the reconstruction is taking place mainly in Iraq’s oilfields
and oil pipelines. Near these oilfields are new military bases being built or
sequestered by the U.S. forces including a military camp inside the Baghdad
international airport; the 25- sq. km. Camp Anaconda north of Baghdad; the
Tallil air base near Nasariyah; in the western desert near the Syrian border;
and at Bashir airfield in the Kurdish region of the north. Economic
reconstruction is also centered on de-nationalizing the oil industry –
reversing the policy made by Saddam years before his fall – leading to all-out
privatization. In fact the whole economic program being laid by the U.S.
occupying force is about reining in Iraq’s economy along privatization and
making sure that BP, Shell, ExxonMobil and other large U.S. corporations would
recover their oil possessions from which they had made huge profits before
Saddam made that difficult. The
economic blueprint, based on the paper “Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery
to Sustainable Growth,” was prepared by the private company Bearing Point
years before Bush, Jr. ordered the invasion of Iraq. At the center of its
implementation is Paul Bremer, the virtual viceroy of the American Empire in
Iraq. Bremer is a top executive of Bearing Point. With
not a single piece of evidence found to prove Bush, Jr.’s theory about
“weapons of mass destruction” to justify his “shock and awe” invasion of
Iraq, what critics – along with millions of anti-war protesters all over the
world – have argued all along in their opposition to the “war on terror”
has been vindicated: OIL. It was oil that moved Bush’s policymakers and
ideologues to make a push for Iraq, it was for oil that every bullet, missile
and cluster bomb were used to bring the Iraqis to their knees in violation of
international law, and it was oil that was behind the arrogant display of
American power in the Persian Gulf. “Blood for oil,” as Bush critics would
put it. Race
for global power For
20 years, Larry Everest, an American freelance investigative writer has covered
the Middle East and Central Asia. His reports have been published by Los Angeles
Times, Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle. Especially in the growing
anti-war movement, his new book, “Oil Power and Empire: Iraq and the U.S.
Global Agenda,” has been a hot copy in the United States. Published
in January this year, “Oil Power and Empire” details the U.S. race to
extend its global power – and Iraq’s unlucky central role. Documents have
been unearthed showing that the war against Iraq had nothing to do with WMDs and
that it was planned the moment Bush, Jr. took his seat as U.S. president early
2001. But the military blueprint was part of a master plan, called “Defense
Policy Guidance,” that Dick Cheney (now U.S. vice president), Paul Wolfowitz
(current defense undersecretary) and other neoconservatives hatched 12 years ago
right after the disintegration of the other superpower – Soviet Union – in a
bid to consolidate American hegemony throughout the world. Iraq
held the key toward making sure that oil would continue to make the American
economy dominant in the 21st century. But it was also to be the base
toward redrawing the map of the Middle East in the American image under the
pretext of “regime change” and “democratization.” In
April 2001, according to Everest, a report by the neoconservative U.S. Council
on Foreign Relations and the Baker Institute for Public Policy, pushed the alarm
button when it revealed that “the world is currently precariously close to
utilizing all of its available global oil production capacity, raising the
chances of an oil supply crisis with more substantial consequences than seen in
three decades.” The
report, which had been commissioned by Vice President Dick Cheney, was followed
by the latter’s own “National Energy Policy” which also warned that in 20
years U.S. oil consumption would increase by 33 percent and natural gas
consumption by well over 50 percent. Based on this trend, Cheney said, the
United States would be importing two-thirds of its oil in 20 years – up from
37 percent in 1980. “Energy security,” Cheney, himself a top oil executive,
reiterated, “must be a priority of U.S. trade and foreign policy.” Iraq
oil Meanwhile,
Iraq, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) could turn
out to be the world’s potentially biggest oil supplier, and not Saudi Arabia,
which has 262 billion barrels of oil reserves. In addition to its 112 billion
proven oil reserves, EIA reveals, Iraq has probably another 220 billion barrels
in unexplored areas. The country’s total oil reserves – 332 billion barrels
- would be equal to one-quarter of total world reserves. That
the acquisition of oil was central to Bush’s war policy is a fact whose trail
leads to the White House itself. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum – who
coined the phrase “axis of evil” – said in October 2001 – that the
global “war on terror” was designed to “bring new freedom and new
stability to the most vicious and violent quadrant of the earth – and new
prosperity to us all, by securing the world’s largest pool of oil.” Along
with the Bush ideologue Richard Perle, Frum advocated in January this year the
overthrow of the Iranian government and imposing economic quarantine of Syria
and military blockade of North Korea. “Who
gets the oil?” became the main agenda of a closed-door meeting of U.S. oilmen,
military strategists and pro-U.S. Iraqi exiles in London in October 2002, as
told by Everest based on a Guardian report. The British paper cited
excerpts from the meeting’s paper, “Invading Iraq: Dangers and Opportunities
for the Energy Sector”: “We could see the three of the world’s largest
public companies – BP, Shell and ExxonMobil – fighting for their old IPC
(Iraq Petroleum Company) possessions” that Saddam Hussein nationalized in
1972. Other
claimants Everest
explains however that just as oil was the hammer that beat the nail of the U.S.
war against Iraq, the same war made sure that other claimants to the Middle East
oil would have to have the blessings of Washington first. It’s the oil,
stupid, former Clinton official Kenneth Pollack says as he bluntly spells out
that the U.S. is not simply concerned with keeping oil from the Persian Gulf
flowing to the U.S. economy. “It also has an interest,” he says, “in
preventing any potentially hostile state from gaining control over the region
and its resources and using such control to amass vast power or blackmail the
world.” “Oil
and Power” unravels the truths behind the war on Iraq, beginning with the
divide-and-rule strategy of the British Empire to subjugate Iraq and other large
chunks of the Middle East at the turn of the 20th century and its
replacement by U.S. neocolonialism in the 1950s. In the book, Everest clearly
lays down the vital interests that had driven colonial powers led by the British
and French empire-builders to covet Iraq and the rest of the Arab world: oil and
the practical value that makes the region the key to a global empire. Using
the same context, Everest offers the reader historical accounts and documented
evidence showing that U.S. policy in the Middle East has nothing to do with
“democratizing” it but rather with the same objectives that drove the
British and French into the heart of the region. Not even war apologists in the
Philippines and fans of Bush, Jr. could ignore these facts. If ever they read
the book, they will not turn to its last page without entertaining second
thoughts about their own views. “Oil
and Power” should be a must read in the Philippines especially among
policy-makers because it has earned acclaim from both radical and pro-war
conservative sectors. Daniel Ellsberg, author of the controversial books Secrets:
A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers says that Everest’s
book “turns on the lights in the dark cellar of American foreign policy in the
Middle East.” He described the book as “remarkable, horrifying and
brilliantly illuminating.” On
the other hand, Anatol Lieven, senior associate of the conservative think tank,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, recommends “Oil Power and
Empire” an “essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the
background to the latest war and the present occupation.” How many more lives have to be claimed in the name of oil? Bulatlat.com We want to know what you think of this article.
|
|