depending upon who and what you read, it's all between the lines<ng>
Chavez fell foul of Bush
doctrine
Thomas Walkom
THERE ARE two
George W. Bush
doctrines. The second
and best known has to
do with terror. Those
who harbour or
support terrorists, or
even those who are
seen by Washington as not adequately
opposing terrorism, are liable to U.S.
attack. It is neatly summed in the U.S.
president's pithy phrase: "Either you are
with us or you are with the terrorists."
But there is a prior George W. doctrine,
upon which the second is based. It is
about energy and is reflected in actions
which defined Bush's early presidency —
his rejection of the Kyoto accord on
global warming for fear that it might
interfere with the hydrocarbon industry,
his insistence on drilling for oil in an
Alaskan wildlife preserve.
That first Bush doctrine could be
summed up in the phrase: Those who do
not supply us with the energy we want
are against us.
Sometimes, the two Bush doctrines
complement each other, as in
Afghanistan, where the American
president has used his pursuit of alleged
Al Qaeda terrorists as an opportunity to
establish military bases in and around the
massive oil fields of Central Asia.
Sometimes, the two doctrines coexist
uneasily — as U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell is finding in the Middle
East.
There, petroleum-producing nations are
reluctant to let Bush proceed with his
plans to put the oil fields of Saddam
Hussein's Iraq into friendly hands (under
the guise of fighting terror) unless, at the
very least, Washington reins in its client
state Israel.
The result here is that Bush, in order to
salvage his energy policy, has been put in
the embarrassing position of chiding the
Israelis for mimicking his own, stern
terrorism policy. But rarely has Bush's
energy doctrine been as starkly visible as
it was on Friday. That was the day that
rebel military forces overthrew
democratically elected Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez and installed a
pro-U.S., former oil company executive,
as national leader.
While there is no evidence Washington
organized the coup, it is hard to imagine
that the plotters did not act without the
Bush regime's blessing. Not only did the
White House immediately support the
coup, it blamed Chavez for his own
downfall, a curious leap of logic.
The reason was oil. True, Chavez had
irritated Bush by trading with Cuba's
Fidel Castro. He even visited Saddam
Hussein once. But his real sin was that he
tried to rein in the country's powerful
state-owned oil company, Petroleos de
Venezuela. In so doing, he threatened
U.S. interests.
Petroleos has long been a law unto itself.
It uses the bulk of its hefty royalties to
increase production. It sells that
production to the U.S. As a result,
Venezuela is America's third largest
supplier of crude oil. In the politically
important U.S. automotive gasoline
market, its share is even larger.
Chavez wanted to target more of the
country's oil profits to fight Venezuela's
staggering poverty. The state oil
company (and Washington) wanted to
spend more on expanding oil production
for export.
What's more, the president irritated
multinational oil companies with his own
version of Canada's long-dead National
Energy Program — doubling royalties
and requiring majority Venezuelan
ownership in new projects.
To accomplish all of this, Chavez fired
the head of the state oil company and
appointed a new slate of directors, which,
as the country's president, he was
apparently legally empowered to do.
Earlier this year, oil company managers
and workers responded by staging strikes
that slashed crude oil imports to the U.S.
by more than a third.
Then came Israel's massive military
incursions into the West Bank. For
Chavez, the timing was unfortunate. On
April 8, Iraq announced a 30-day oil
boycott in support of beleaguered
Palestinians. The price of crude rose;
analysts warned that U.S. economic
recovery could suffer. On Friday, four
days after the Iraqi boycott, a faction of
the Venezuelan military deposed Chavez.
State oil company managers and workers
ended their strike. The new president,
installed by the military, announced he
was cancelling laws the multinational oil
firms didn't like.
Exports to the U.S. resumed. The price of
crude slipped by 6 per cent. Not
surprisingly, Bush's White House gave
its imprimatur to the coup.
Alas, the U.S. had not put enough
thought, and perhaps not enough effort,
into this otherwise admirable use of Bush
Doctrine One. The Venezuelan military,
it seems, was split. Some senior officers
still liked former paratrooper Chavez.
What's more, other Latin American
nations friendly to the U.S. declined to
play their usual accommodating role,
instead bucking Washington to condemn
the coup. On Sunday, Chavez was
returned to office.
Still, the Bush White House was
unrepentant. National Security Advisor
Condoleeza Rice said she hoped Chavez
had learned his lesson. Presumably, he
has. So have we all. Bush wants the
world's energy. As much as the events of
Sept. 11, this is what drives U.S policy.
thestar.com
ya gotta keep up ol' chap, it's global warfare<ng> |
