[Peace-discuss] Saudi Arabia

[C. G. Estabrook]

Paul--

I think the answer is to be found in two other questions: (1) in what
sense is this a "war for oil" (which it obviously is); and (2) what is the
relationship (established over a rather long history) between the US and
Saudi Arabia?

Forgive me for addressing the first by quoting a piece of mine in the
current Public i:

"Practically since the Second World War -- from which the United States
emerged as the world's only undamaged major country and proceeded to
organize the economy of the world -- a cornerstone of American policy has
been control of Middle East energy resources, the greatest geopolitical
prize in the modern world.  Control, not just access, was what was
required by all US administrations, Republican and Democrat, because
control of those resources gave the US control of its principal economic
competitors -- which turned out to be, by the late 20th century, a
German-led Europe and a Japan-led East Asia.
	
"The US has never in fact required Mideast oil for its own society -- all
the energy requirements of the US could be filled from national sources
(especially when we include in "national sources," our "backyard" -- Latin
America!)  But Germany imports 80% of its energy resources, and Japan,
100%.  Who controls world oil, controls the life-line of the modern
world."

But if control, not just access, is the issue, we can see the difference
between SA and Iraq, the two states with the most oil in the world.  The
US already does control SA oil, because SA is a client state that
effectively does US bidding.  The oil is allocated with US oversight via
US-based corporations, and the profits flow through US banks.  Even in the
"oil shocks" of the 1970s (i.e., price rises by OPEC), the US policy was
to keep a floor under oil prices, not to bring them down particularly,
because the oil and profit flows were in the hands of our clients.

But Iraq is another story.  While it was a client (up to 1990), there was
no problem, but once relations were broken, the US was afraid that, e.g.,
a France-Iraq deal could bring oil to Europe (and elsewhere) that the US
didn't control, as could independent Russia-Iraq deals.

The UN sanctions regime (run by the US and UK) and the concomitant "oil
for food" program puts effective control of Iraqi oil back into US hands,
but it's obviously not as comfortable for the US (it borders on the
genocidal for Iraq) as the arrangement with SA.  And the chronic toll of
Iraqis killed by sanctions is bad PR -- in fact it was one of the three
grievances cited by the 9/11 attackers. (Another was US occupation of SA,
and the third was the oppression of the Palestinians.)

Of course once the US establishes complete control over Iraqi oil, it's in
an even better place to keep SA or any other OPEC member (say Venezuela)
from getting uppity.  And its strangle-hold on the world economy is
assured.  That's why an ex-head of the CIA wrote explicitly (if a bit
crassly) in the WSJ that France and Russia better go along with the US in
the Security Council, or no oil for them after we take Iraq...

And the mad hawks in this administration have been forthright in their
assertion that the occupation of Iraq should lead on to the reduction of
Syria and Lebanon, and even greater control of Jordan and SA.  (They don't
stop there: secure imperial control of the entire Middle East, they argue,
will then prepare the US to deal with China [sic].)

Regards, Carl

  ==============================================================
  Carl Estabrook, Visiting Scholar
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana IL 61801 USA
  office: 217.244.4105 mobile: 217.369.5471 home: 217.359.9466   
  <www.carlforcongress.org>
  ===============================================================

On Fri, 14 Feb 2003, paul michael king wrote:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> Can anyone on this list explain to me why we have not attacked Saudi
> Arabia? If this is about oil and they have such large reserves, why don't
> we take them out? Why Iraq?
> 
> ..::Paul King
> 
>    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>     "The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think,
>       and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know...
>          Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough..."
>               -- John Adams, 2nd president of the US --
>