Dabum, I wonder if we have to presume so much in the way of financial relationships with oil countries and dollar based oil prices. Isn't it all based upon the concept that whoever controls the marginal supply of oil, its distribution, and thereby its pricing, has the power to affect prosperity in any nation in the world. Regardless of the mechanism, isn't it enough to know that without some control over Mideast oil, our prosperity is out of our hands and under the control of nations governed by men that are and may well continue to be ideologically at opposite poles from not only our country but much of the free world.
Of course the problem and the economic threat they pose gets worse every year as the availability dwindles and the cost rises for alternative supplies of oil. What we're really saying is that in a world where each trading partner has equal ability to make and enforce contracts, they've got a better bargaining hand than we do. The result would be that they could make a deal with us that would send more of our trading goods to them in return for less of their trading goods.
I think that we've both reached the opinion that this nation has embarked on a course that incorporates the use, or threat of use, of military power to maintain the status quo in terms of our access to cheap oil from the mideast. In reality that requires control over a large pool of that oil and a base in the mideast that allows us to maintain a presence there in order to enforce that access.
Just before 9/11 the Saudis were so enraged at the Bush mideast foreign policy, or lack thereof, that the Saudi Prince sent a letter to Bush informing him of his intent to evict us from our bases in Saudi Arabia and to convene and Arab summit on the Israeli-Palestinian question. The Washington Post articles that revealed that series of events indicated that the Saudis were deadly serious and weren't trying to run a bluff. Bush immediately replied by endorsing the Clinton Mideast policy and the dispute was resolved a few days before 9/11 but it must have highlighted the fragility of our influence in the Mideast. With the internal pressures on our "friends" in power in the mideast as a result of our influence with them, it's clear that our postiton there was threatened.
I guess the problem is that we need what they have to trade more than they need what we have to trade. In the near future with the rise of Islammic fundamentalism as a driving force in Mideast decision making, they might soon see us as a trading partner to avoid. In a peaceful world where a benevolent one-superpower nation assures that no one will steal their pot of gold, they probably felt they no longer needed to remain under our umbrella of protection. In the end, we had to use that power to attain and assure a bargain that we couldn't attain by trading means.
The fact that we could achieve a more rapid change of regime and make a point with any nations that might have thought of harboring terrorists or developing wmds was a bonus. The fact that we wreaked havoc with developing rules of international law, with the concept of a functioning United Nations and that we may have fanned the fuels of hatred and fear for the U.S. were deficits.
In the end, I agree with your implication that very little of it was justified by morality or our empathy for the truly oppressed Iraqis. In the long run we have articulated no plan for their near term safety or prosperity. They may be freer from government decreeed suffering but who will protect them from the hatreds of the factions within their borders? If it ends badly and we get the control over oil that we desire, will we someday rue the decisions we've made? It will be a long road and the tremors may well last longer than I do. One thing for sure, if we don't use the power we have and the power we've gained by access to their oil to create a workable world order that benefits all, we'll pay in the long run. You can't break the pinnata and hope to hold onto all the candy. I learned that in grammar school. There's just too many of them and they'll roll you over and get at it. g. Ed |
