Since the destruction of its building in Istanbul yesterday
by Al Qaeda, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, one of the
largest banks in the world, will now be adding its voice to those other
large corporations which, according to various press reports tucked away
in our leading newspapers such as the Financial Times but not paid
much attention to so far, are quietly advising the American
administration that their Middle East policy is misguided.
The other quiet voices so far have been the leading US and UK oil
corporations, and LUKoil (at least) in Russia which have declined to take
up the Americans' offer to start developing the oil fields of
Iraq.
Turkey has been defined as a "soft target" for Al Qaeda by many
commentators, implying that Al Qaeda are no longer able to repeat
spectacular incidents in Western countries such as the original one on 11
September 2001 in New York. That's as may be. Perhaps Al Qaeda see more
mileage now in going for targets in the Middle East. Nevertheless, the
choice of the HSBC building in Istanbul, and followed immediately by the
attack on the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad, suggests that, among all the
other smaller terrorist incidents which are of a more opportunistic
nature, Al Qaeda has precisely defined targets in mind. By this I
mean almost any very large international corporation with corresponding
clout at the highest levels of the American administration.
The news that is only now coming through at the time of writing from
Baghdad about the rocket attacks on the Iraqi oil ministry and the
Palestine and Sheraton Hotel confirms the precise political messages that
Al Qaeda is making. I would imagine that any large American-based
international corporation is a target now. No doubt many CEOs are now
redoubling, tripling, quadrupling security on any of their prestigious
headquarters anywhere in the world.
My guess is that the attacks on Sheraton and HSBC will have very powerful
effects on American policy. It can only accelerate Bush's plans to
withdraw his troops as rapidly as possible. For the sake of making sure
that he is going to be re-elected in November next year, he may even have
to give up on his hopes that a new Iraqi government will necessarily
grant oil contracts to US and UK oil corporations in the near future. But
then he will be faced with the bigger problem -- almost inevitable
instability in Saudi Arabia which is still, fortunately for Bush,
continuing to supply America with 15% of its oil.
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, Bath, England,
<www.evolutionary-economics.org>
