Haven't read Nizan yet, but maybe the Iraq campaign was more of a
Goldfinger move. Remember Goldfinger? He wanted to render all the gold
in Fort Knox radioactive so that _his_ gold would be worth more.
One view of the war holds that it was over control of oil. This
translates in a lot of people's minds into a simple we'll grab the oil
and sell it scenario. But add this little twist, that with the military
situation deteriorating, the domestic oil that is still under the
control of the Texan oilers...will be worth more. Add to this the
squeeze the American working class (through direct and indirect
taxation) ploy to fund the reconstruction -- which is nothing more
than handing out money to various domestic cronies to pay themselves to
do what the Iraqis could have done for 1/10th the cost...and you have a
script that plays out pretty well for the Bush cronies...no matter how
the war turns out.
In other words, the neo-cons are serving the interests of a fairly small
slice of capitalists, which is probably more the reason they will be
defeated than due to the efforts of any large-scale, organized,
leftist/democratic opposition.
Joanna
Michael Perelman wrote:
On November 20, two explosions rattled Istanbul, pushing the price of
oil up to $32/bbl. Eventually, the
rally receded:
It's hard to sustain prices at this level,'' said Marshall Steeves,
an analyst with Refco
Group Ltd. in New York. There has to be a constant stream of
unsettling news items
to justify crude oil above $30.'' (see the full Bloomberg article)
According to both the neocon plans and their left-wing critiques, this
is not what was supposed to happen.
The wars on Afghanistan and Iraq were designed, at least in part, as the
first step toward regaining
control over Middle East oil. The aim was to finally relieve
capitalism from the saboteurs in OPEC
and to make energy cheap, so that capitalism could continue its
expanded reproduction. Obviously, this
plan is not working very well. The Middle East remains unstable as
always (if not more). And the price
of oil keeps rising (see the two charts below).
Most analysts view the current chaos as entirely unintended. The more
optimistic hope the crisis will soon
be resolved. The pessimists talk about entanglement. Had the American
known what was in store for
them, perhaps they would have thought twice before stepping into the
Iraqi trap. And maybe many in the
American Administration were dumb enough to be so misguided and
careless. But certainly many more
were not. George Bush Sr., for one, knew full well what the consequences
would be (read about it).
Many of his friends in the CIA and the military knew it too. Even we
knew it. Indeed, anyone who knew
anything about the current Middle East would have realized that a
liberating army would make for
sitting ducks. With no regular army to fight against, and being unable
to retaliate against a supposedly
supportive population, the soldiers can do nothing more than sit and
wait to be fired upon. And as the
attacks mount, perceptions of instability substitute for stability, and
the price of oil keeps creeping up. It
seems that America had shot itself in the foot. Or had it?
Perhaps there is an upside to regional instability and higher oil
prices? To read more, click on the
following links:
It's All About Oil
Dominant Capital and the New Wars
Ch. 6 in The Global Political Economy of Israel
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901
