Hakki Alacakaptan wrote:
>
> Carrol, Exxon and Halliburton have already got the oil rights. The problem
> is getting the stuff to the Asian market. The western pipeline routes aren't
> that profitable.
O.K. but let's pursue it a bit further, by distinguishing between the interests of the _ruling class of capitalists_ of an imperialist nation and the interests of particular sectors of that ruling class. [1] Exxon, Halliburton, etc. are a sector of a sector (the oil interest as a whole), and it may well be that that sub-sector now has hegemony within the ruling circles and can dictate state action in its own interests. In this case, you are correct to focus on the question of profits.
My focus was on the imperial interests of the U.S. (and/or its ruling class) _as a whole_: and that interest is, in very real ways, potentially quite indifferent to the 'local' interests of EXXON or UNOCAL (or GM for that matter), though as a matter of empirical fact oil (and connected) interests have pretty much driven u.s. policy for a century or so. In respect to oil that general interest dictates only that the oil be available -- not that its profits be retained by this or that oil company. [Remember the second half of my subject line: A Speculation.)
Those interests _also_ (as a whole) are concerned with the safety of imperial power -- and if my speculation is correct, it is that safety (rather than UNOCAL profits which they may be misjudging, and in the process allowing themselves to be "drawn in deep." "They" (whoever they are) may be judging that they _must_ respond in force; that they must continue to teach lessons (this is Sartre's argument re the vietnam war) to (Twain's phrase) "The Person Sitting in Darkness." And that may be a strategic error on their part. I am thinking that it is along these lines that leftists (and A Left if we succeed in forming one) should make _our_ strategic plans: that we should organize now on the assumption that the Ruling Class is indeed waist deep in the big muddy, and the damn fool says, wade on.
Carrol
[1] All I am asserting is a multiplicity of special interests, and the possible predominance at a given time of one group or another of those interests. I am NOT asserting that in any significant sense there exist antagonistic contradictions within the ruling class. That assumption is (has been for a century) the premise of opportunism in the u.s. -- i.e. the belief of some leftists that "the left" can ally with this or that sector of the ruling class.
Carrol