[lbo-talk] Re: Bush invaded Iraq because...

[C. G. Estabrook]

I'll check my pilot -- perhaps an unfortunate metaphor in these matters --
but I'm frankly astonished by the suggestion that control of world energy
resources would *not* have significant strategic advantages, particularly
in a world of declining supplies.  It's certainly understandable "in the
narrow sectoral sense, that some specific oil companies" might have
hesitations about a policy undertaken in the interests of the "U.S.
capital as a whole"  -- some oil companies were apparently quite
suspicious of the assault on Iraq, as disruptive of comfortable
arrangements. And even if "the strategic exercise of this control would be
an act of war," it is at least capable of somewhat greater fine-tuning
than attacking Europe with cruise missiles. And at the risk of giving aid
and comfort to the dangerous Dime's-Worth Of Differencers, I included
Chomsky's sketch to show the remarkable unanimity on the usefulness of
this strategic weapon, as US political leadership oscillated wildly from
liberal to conservative and back again... --CGE

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:


> C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
> >I'm surprised to see you write this dismissively about the US concern for
> >control of oil, Doug.  Bush & friends didn't scheme to invade the Congo,
> >with far more enormities than Iraq (and of course no one in the USG --
> >with the possible exception of Bush himself -- really thought that a
> >threat from Iraq was the motive).  Chomsky quotes Eisenhower-era comments
> >about Saudi oil's being "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one
> >of the greatest material prizes in world history," and that's no less true
> >now. After WWII the US elbowed Britain (and France) aside to control
> >Mideast oil, staged the paradigm CIA overthrow in Iran to secure it, and
> >grew increasingly exercised on the subject in the Reagan years when the EU
> >looked like moiling about in the Middle East -- or even establishing
> >independent energy sources in Russia.  I think one could argue that a
> >paramount US concern in reducing the Russian economy to Third-world status
> >(GDP smaller than Brazil) in the 1990s was to be sure that Russian gas and
> >oil were rightly guided.  And it would be difficult to explain the US
> >support for Israel since 1967 if weren't for Israel's being the cop on the
> >beat to guard against domestic radicalism in the oil-producing states.  I
> >know neither you nor I think that US policies vis-a-vis Israel are the
> >result of the occult and irresistible influence of the pro-Israel lobby...
> 
> Let me try this one more time. The Bush admin may think all these 
> things about the control of oil; I'm trying to determine how accurate 
> and rational their beliefs are. As I've said, I don't get the 
> economic payoff, except maybe in the narrow sectoral sense that some 
> specific oil companies might benefit, but not U.S. capital as a 
> whole. (The not-a-dime's-worth-of-difference crowd will resist this, 
> because there can't be much difference between Bush and the others.) 
> I'm skeptical of the strategic payoff, since the strategic exercise 
> of this control would be an act of war, and if you're going to wage 
> war, it's a lot more efficient to go after your target country than 
> to try to "control" the producing regions. I'm not persuaded by 
> quotes from Chomsky; just because he says something doesn't make it 
> true, nor am I persuaded that 50-year old quotes from Ike are 
> relevant to the state of the world in 2004. It seems to me that a lot 
> of these arguments come from people on autopilot.
>