Wojtek S wrote:
>
> Carrol: "The whole topic is irdrelevant as a perspective on U.S.
> foreign policy except to reveal for the nth time the sharp split between
> real and announced aims of that policy."
>
> [WS:] But that hardly explains what those aims are, except perhaps in a
> circular fashion (Why did they do it? Because it was their aim? And how do
> we know it was their aim?? Because they did it.)
That would be a separate topic.
I have argued often (and Carl Estabrook has argued in more detail) that the wars and subversions in the Middle East and central asia, going back to the 1950s, has always been over _control_ of Middle-East oil. (Not for oil, for _control_ over oil.)
Within this assumption, there is a question that can be debated. Many (especially 'traditional' Marxists) would argue that it is _U.S._ control that is the goal; I would argue that, whatever it was 50 or 100 years ago, this no longer focused in inter-imperialist antagonisms (such as triggered the two World Wars) but rather to be seen in the context of Ellen Meiksins Wood's concept of the "Empire of Capital." It's not that a particular Administration would not throw goodies to its 'favorite' u.s. corporations but merely that that would not be the primary grounds of the effort.
Carrol