The Lesson of Iraq

A gem from the Atlantic archive, William R. Polk's "The Lesson of Iraq" from our December 1958 issue. His bottom line:

What, in effect, do we want from the Middle East? Any answer must be tentative and subject to revision periodically. At the present, the answer seems to me to be sufficient peace to prevent a world war and a sufficient flow of oil to maintain the European economy. The first is the common interest of most Arabs, who are in earnest when they insist on "positive neutralism." Of the second, two points must be made: on the one hand, Europe now depends for 80 per cent of her oil on the Middle East, but she could be supplied, admittedly at greater cost, from other sources. On the other hand, the sale of oil is the major source of revenue for many of the Arab countries and is the only hope for those who plan, as does the new generation of nationalists, large-scale development programs—and the only customer for all of the Middle Eastern oil is Europe. Let us not forget that our essential policy interests are identical with those of the Arabs.

I think that this continues to contain a lot of wisdom. Certainly, to follow one of the main themes of the piece, our efforts to micro-manage domestic political outcomes in the Arab world haven't had a ton of success.

Photo by Flickr user skampy used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

I think you should stop digging through fifty-year-old pieces promoting bog-standard American imperialism in order to promote your magazine's online archives.

Posted by strasmangelo jones | April 14, 2008 1:35 PM

Eh, I don't know. One didn't have to be a tremendous soothsayer to grasp in 1958 that the fact that Persian Gulf oil was geologically the easiest to get out of the ground, had the largest reserves, and that oil is fungible, meant that the Persian Gulf was going to be a likely fertile ground for internal conflict, and thus have friction with the rest of the world. Was "the oil problem" in regards to new or developing states really so unforseeable? I'm not just asking rhetorically; it would be interesting to research to seel how many did forsee the problems which would arise.

Posted by Will Allen | April 14, 2008 1:40 PM

What, in effect, do we want from the Middle East?

To blame our foreign policy failures on the religious extremists that our allies blame for their domestic policy failures to that we can go on propping up a doomed economic arrangement?

This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
.

Posted by Grand Moff Texan | April 14, 2008 1:48 PM

"But, still, winning is much more fun than losing! Every election between 1997 and 2006 felt like a tremendous loss. That sucked. It was rather depressing to be a Democrat. It wasn't any fun at all!

It's still not as fun as it could be. But it does indeed feel like there's been a shift in the country."
-Atrios 13:02
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why yes, there has been a noticeable shift. Look, the war is winding down.....er.....OK, CAFE standards have been raised, saving the enviroment and cutting back on impor................OK, um....gays can adopt and marry in more and more states......NO?.......hmmm..... At least the Justice Department isn't being run by someone perfectly happy to let Bush run roughshod over the Constitu.......OK, more nations have come to respect and admire us? Nah? Somebody call Atrios about this whole shift thing.....

Posted by steve duncan | April 14, 2008 1:53 PM

I thought the Lesson of Iraq was that William Kristol is never ever ever correct. Ever.

Posted by ed | April 14, 2008 1:55 PM

Excellent post, Matt. All those folks who imagine that the whole history of the Iraq War started with "Bush lies" around 2000 are in need of some context.

Posted by Robert Powell | April 14, 2008 1:56 PM

Steve Duncan reminds me of people I've known who suffer from serious depression. Nothing makes them angrier than the suggestion that their lives could change for the better.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 14, 2008 1:58 PM

A statement Bin Laden made in a 1997 interview with Peter Arnett -regarding the sale of oil --was interesting:
--------

Peter Arnett: Mr. Bin Ladin, if the Islamic movement takes over Saudi Arabia, what would your attitude to the West be and will the price of oil be higher?

BIN LADIN: We are a nation and have a long history, with the grace of God, Praise and Glory be to Him. We are now in the 15th century of this great religion, the complete and comprehensive methodology, has clarified the dealing between an individual and another, the duties of the believer towards God, Praise and Glory be to Him, and the relationship between the Muslim country and other countries in time of peace and in time of war.

If we look back at our history, we will find there were many types of dealings between the Muslim nation and the other nations in time of peace and in time of war, including treaties and matters to do with commerce. So it is not a new thing that we need to come up with. Rather, it already, by the grace of God, exists.

As for oil, it is a commodity that will be subject to the price of the market according to supply and demand. We believe that the current prices are not realistic due to the Saudi regime playing the role of a US agent and the pressures exercised by the US on the Saudi regime to increase production and flooding the market that caused a sharp decrease in oil prices. "
------------
Ref: http://www.anusha.com/osamaint.htm

I wonder if Bin Laden has ever simply said "Yes" or "No"?

I pity the poor oil trader who would ever have to negotiate with him. It must be tiring to ask Bin Laden for the time of day and have to parse 20 paragraphs of flowery reply.

Almost like listening to John Kerry answer a question --albeit minus the qualifiers, caveats and codecils.

Posted by Don Williams | April 14, 2008 2:38 PM

lemuel pitkin reminds me of that pesky dog underfoot whenever you're trying to work in the garage or yard. All you have to do is throw it a bone in any direction a hundred feet and suddenly you're left alone to proceed. Democrats chase the bones while Republicans get back to whatever the hell they damn well please doing. Yet the dog continually thinks it has the best of the bargain.

Posted by steve duncan | April 14, 2008 2:39 PM

"our efforts to micro-manage domestic political outcomes in the Arab world haven't had a ton of success."

I think this is largely untrue until the last few years. I mean, Saudi Arabia would likely not be "Saudi" were it not for us. We've propped up Egypt's autocracy since 1978, Iraq against Iran for a long time, Jordan against the PLO, and Lebanon post-Israeli invasion but pre-emergence of Hezbollah.

Maybe neocolonialism is finally going out of style?

Posted by Steve W. | April 14, 2008 3:43 PM

Saudi Arabia was formed when one British-backed royal family kicked another British-backed royal family, the Hashemites, out of the Hejaz. The British are said to have been displeased, but they did not cut subsidies to Saudis, and in fact soon increased them.

I'm not aware that the U.S. has ever been essential to keeping the Saudis in power.

Posted by David Tomlin | April 14, 2008 4:31 PM

Re David Tomlin's comment "I'm not aware that the U.S. has ever been essential to keeping the Saudis in power"
----------
Oh bullshit.

Al Qaeda bombs the offices of a US corporation and the US news media refuses to even look at WHAT THAT CORPORATION does?

Ever hear of Vinnell, Inc? Now a subsidy of huge US defense contractor Northrup Grumman.

See http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=7850 and
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0513-06.htm

Plus, you think the US government has been selling the Saudi Royal Family all those advanced weapons systems (jets,etc) for DECADES just so the royal family can fight off EXTERNAL enemies?

Is "I'm not aware"

codespeak for:

"Like most Americans, I don't know what the fuck the US government has been doing in the Middle East for the past 40 years on behalf of the oil companies?"

Posted by Don Williams | April 14, 2008 4:43 PM

Or is "I'm not aware" codespeak for

"I believed George the Oil Whore when he said that 19 Saudi citizens came over here and gave their lives to strike us simply because they hate our freedom" ?

Posted by Don Williams | April 14, 2008 4:47 PM

I also don't understand these idiots who say things like "well, the oil is there, so there's gonna be war there, so the US has to start the wars there."

Just because there's oil there doesn't mean all these countries are going to go to war with each other. And even if they did, we'd still get the oil from SOMEBODY.

And while there was considerable concern back in the Cold War days that Russia was gaining too much influence in the Arab countries, which is why the US treated Israel with kid gloves and let them get away with murder (literally), it was never likely that Russia would control the oil any more than the US can today.

So it was all bullshit.

The real reason we have these problems is that the fucktard chimps who run this country react with the usual human hostility to being dependent on someone else. And that always expresses itself in attempting to dominate the one you depend on.

It's a goddamn dominance/submission pattern that plays out everywhere in human behavior. It's only totally obvious in the sex games that the submissive actually does the domination.

So the US can't stand the Arabs having the oil and setting the prices, so the US has to try to dominate the Arabs, and even that isn't enough for some assholes like the neocons, so we have to actually go there and crush them and control the country directly with military force.

THIS is why we're in Iraq and why we're going into Iran - because of a bunch of fearful, aggressive scumbags, with cheerleaders like Powell and Ford who are basically scared to death of foreigners or anybody else who might have something they want.

Like I keep saying, government IS an organized criminal enterprise. If you're a state, you steal from your citizens and you try to steal from any other state you think you can beat on the battlefield (which your citizens think is okay because it's better than stealing from them). That IS what the state IS.

Chimpanzees worried about the state of the banana competition with the other troops.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 14, 2008 5:37 PM

Uh, no Richard. U.S. Presidents know that their popularity rests in good part on the price of gas. No, that's not rational on the part of voters, but I think you are acknowledging that rationality doesn't always carry the day. In any case, any interruption in Saudi extraction, even a very temporary one, entails huge price spikes. Thus U.S. Presidents back the House of Saud on defacto basis, yes, against external enemies, but more importantly, against internal enemies. Thus the U.S. becomes the defacto enemy of all who oppose the House of Saud, internally or externally. Yes, whomever controls the fields will sell the oil, but that assumes someone will control the fields every single day, which is the only type of control an American President is interested in.

Posted by Will Allen | April 14, 2008 6:17 PM

That was a pretty good burning man piece. You should check out the pics of it on fire.

Posted by bago | April 14, 2008 6:48 PM

"Yes, whomever controls the fields will sell the oil, but that assumes someone will control the fields every single day, which is the only type of control an American President is interested in."

That's exactly what I said. But the underlying motivation is also exactly what I said. Otherwise US President might have the smarts to realize that dumping oil is the better solution.

"In any case, any interruption in Saudi extraction, even a very temporary one, entails huge price spikes."

And exactly what has the price of oil done in the last five years?

Do you really think George Bush gives a rat's ass about how much gas costs YOU? Oh, no, pal, He cares about how much YOU pay his oil company CRONIES - and that depends on raising the price of oil, not lowering it.

Greg Palast argues that the war in Iraq was for the purpose of taking Iraqi oil OFF the market as much as it was for getting it cheap. The reality is that it was for the CONTROL of the PRICE that it was done: the ability to raise and lower the price in line or not with OPEC. Saddam was not always in line with OPEC for his own reasons, and that made the oil companies unhappy, because they weren't in control of that.

Read this:

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
http://www.gregpalast.com/bush-didnt-bungle-iraq-you-fools/

Money Quotes:

"'It's about oil,' Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA's top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam's former oil minister to finalize the plans for "liberating" Iraq's oil industry. In London, Bush's emissary Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose as post-OIF oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing Iraq's crude.

And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn't matter. The key thing is what's inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will "enhance its relationship with OPEC."

Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude.

Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get more of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it.

You must keep in mind who paid for George's ranch and Dick's bunker: Big Oil. And Big Oil -- and their buck-buddies, the Saudis -- don't make money from pumping more oil, but from pumping less of it. The lower the supply, the higher the price.

It's Economics 101. The oil industry is run by a cartel, OPEC, and what economists call an "oligopoly" -- a tiny handful of operators who make more money when there's less oil, not more of it. So, every time the "insurgents" blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time Mad Mahmoud in Tehran threatens to cut supply, the price of oil leaps. And Dick and George just love it.

Dick and George didn't want more oil from Iraq, they wanted less. I know some of you, no matter what I write, insist that our President and his Veep are on the hunt for more crude so you can cheaply fill your family Hummer; that somehow, these two oil-patch babies are concerned that the price of gas in the USA is bumping up to $3 a gallon.

Not so, gentle souls. Three bucks a gallon in the States (and a quid a litre in Britain) means colossal profits for Big Oil, and that makes Dick's ticker go pitty-pat with joy. The top oily-gopolists, the five largest oil companies, pulled in $113 billion in profit in 2005 -- compared to a piddly $34 billion in 2002 before Operation Iraqi Liberation. In other words, it's been a good war for Big Oil.

As per Plan Bush, Bahr Al-Ulum became Iraq's occupation oil minister; the conquered nation "enhanced its relationship with OPEC;" and the price of oil, from Clinton peace-time to Bush war-time, shot up 317%."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 14, 2008 8:48 PM

For people who don't get the whole picture, here are several Greg Palast articles that explain it all in detail - with evidence, not just speculation.

You want to know why US troops have to remain in Iraq? Well, one reason is the longer they stay, the more oil pipelines get blown up or the oil smuggled by the militias - and the LESS oil gets pumped. Now do you get the picture?

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
The Mission Was Indeed Accomplished
By Greg Palast
http://www.gregpalast.com/bush-didnt-bungle-iraq-you-fools/

It's STILL The Oil:
Secret Condi Meeting on Oil Before Invasion
http://www.gregpalast.com/its-still-the-oilsecret-condi-meeting-on-oil-before-invasion/

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 14, 2008 9:07 PM

Here's the rest, to avoid the Atlantic spam filter.

Keeping Iraq's Oil in the Ground
By Greg Palast
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/61/20480

Secret US Plans for Iraq's Oil
By Greg Palast
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9704

OPEC and The Economic Conquest of Iraq
Why Iraq Still sells its oil à la cartel
Twilight of the neocon gods
By Greg Palast
http://www.gregpalast.com/opec-and-the-economic-conquest-of-iraqrnwhy-iraq-still-sells-its-oil-a-la-cartelrntwilight-of-the-neocon-gods/

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 14, 2008 9:10 PM

Richard, interrupt Saudi extraction, and the run-up you have seen over the past five years looks so minor that it barely warrants a mention. Even so, the political price Bush has paid for that run-up guarantees that any Ameican President will back the House of Saud, all the way.

Iraq wasn't exporting enough oil before Hussein's removal to have much effect on the price. Your conspiracy theories are a bit crazy. Keep it simple. Politicians like votes. Period. Votes for incumbent parties are harder to get with high gas prices.

Posted by Will Allen | April 14, 2008 9:11 PM

In fact, on further thought, this even makes senses as one reason for Maliki's crackdown on the Sadr group in Basra.

According to reports, something like two billion dollars worth of oil is being smuggled out of Iraq every year. A lot of this money is in the hands of various Shia militias, including Sadr, the Badr Brigade, the Fahdila, and other groups.

It's likely that the oil companies don't like this, because smuggled oil probably has at least some small impact on the price elsewhere. And in any event, two billion bucks or more is a lot of money to pour into a militia or three.

This, as opposed to Saddam's oil smuggling, as this report makes clear:

Documents: U.S. condoned Iraq oil smuggling
Trade was an open secret in administration, U.N.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/02/iraq.oil.smuggle/index.html

So while nitwits like Powell and Ford babble about how the sanctions weren't working because Saddam was skirting them, the administration knew all about that.

But now that oil smugglers are tampering with the whole business of exporting Iraq oil, the oil companies need Bush to move Maliki to control that.

See this article on how big this whole thing is:

Attacks on Iraq oil industry aid vast smuggling scheme
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/04/africa/web.0604smuggle.php

"But Oil Ministry data suggest that the total was $2.5 billion to $4 billion in 2005, said Yahia Said, a research fellow at the London School of Economics and director of the Iraq Revenue Watch at the Open Society Institute, a policy foundation.

Even at the low end, that would mean smuggling costs account for almost 10 percent of Iraq's gross domestic product, $29.3 billion in 2005."

See this article:

How Iraqi Oil Smuggling Greases Violence
http://www.meforum.org/article/1020

"On July 26, 2004, the new Iraqi government signed a deal to export crude oil to Syria in exchange for oil products. Over a three-week period in April 2006, Iraqi police seized 400,000 barrels of crude oil that was being smuggled into Syria.[17] Within twenty-four hours, police at the Rabiyah border crossing confiscated 1,200 smuggling tanker trunks whose drivers carried forged documents.[18] The scale of smuggling suggests the complicity of both Syrian and Iraqi government officials. Indeed, Dawud al-Baghistani, head of the Commission on Public Integrity in Mosul, told reporters that while the ring was connected to insurgents, the parties involved in the Rabiyah smuggling included officials from customs and the ministries of oil, interior, and finance, as well as some private companies. Smugglers offered Baghistani, who coordinated the sting operation, $1 million to release the $28 million shipment.[19]

In another case demonstrating the confluence of officials, oil smuggling, and the insurgency, insurgents bribed government officials in order to access oil routes. Hazem al-Shaalan, who served as defense minister during the interim administration of Ayad Allawi, tasked Mish'an al-Juburi, a former parliamentarian and leader of an influential tribe in Iraq, to secure oil pipelines between Baiji and Kirkuk, an area which falls within the Al-Juburi tribal territory. Subsequently, Juburi was indicted for theft of several million U.S. dollars. Iraqi officials also suspect that he knowingly hired insurgents to infiltrate oil pipeline protection forces and shared profits with the insurgents.[20] It appears likely that Juburi, insurgents, or both bribed Shaalan to offer the original contract. The Iraqi government subsequently accused him of both massive corruption and provision of Saddam loyalists with intelligence and requested that Interpol arrest both Shalaan and Juburi.[21]

The profits insurgents reap from the oil trade are significant. Some estimate that insurgents pocket 40 to 50 percent of oil smuggling-generated revenue.[22] Government complicity in oil smuggling has continued. "Oil and fuel smuggling networks have grown into a dangerous mafia, threatening the lives of those in charge of fighting corruption," the former oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, told reporters. Saying that Iraq is losing at least a billion dollars each year to corruption, Ulum did not deny that corruption has inflicted SOMO as well.[23] ‘‘It's clear that corruption funds the insurgency," a U.S. official added.[24] In mid-2005, the Oil Ministry fired 450 employees on suspicion they were stealing fuel and selling it abroad.[25]"

"Corruption has also compromised Basra, Iraq's second largest city and southern hub. Close to the Rumayla oil fields and linked by the Shatt al-Arab waterway to the Persian Gulf, it is a natural outlet for smuggling. A chief node in Saddam's oil smuggling operations, oil smuggling in Basra has only grown more overt since his fall. One resident, Hussein as-Sabti, told a reporter that the brazenness of smugglers has "prompted the population of Basra to ask whether or not smuggling of petrol is an illegitimate act at all."[28] Salim Hussein, director of Basra Oil Products, said, that "influential political people and parties are running these smuggling operations."[29]

The rivalry among various Shi‘ite parties has compounded the problem. The Fadhila Party controls the governor's office as well as the oil industry in Basra. When new prime minister Nuri al-Maliki decided not to give the oil ministry to the Fadhila party when he announced his new cabinet in May 2006, the party threatened to stop oil exports.[30] Had they not received benefits from their position, such drastic action would be unnecessary. A senior Iraqi oil official said that Fadhila sought kickbacks, and he blamed the unrest in Basra on the corruption and "power struggle between militias and mafias" within the ruling Shi‘ite coalition.[31] A Shi‘ite political source told a reporter, "He who owns Basra owns the oil reserves … It has a strategic position so why would anyone give it up?"[32]"

So this is what US troops are dying for - not to "protect our vital national interests in the Middle East", like some nitwits named Powell talk about.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 14, 2008 9:48 PM

Really, was the context at the time, after the '58 revolution that decapitated Nuri al Said
and Ghazi 2; that we had lost a major ally against Nasser; after the collapse of CENTO. Interestingly, the same people who had talked up Nasser in the early 50s; Copeland and Eichelberger
were the ones in contact with the Baathist exiles in Cairo, which included Saddam Hussein. By the way, isn't 'positive neutralism' basically a free hand to do in the Jews, which was the main point of commonality from the Golden Square movement of Rashid Ghailani, to the 1947 intervention in the 1st Arab Israeli War, to the Baathist war cries which Aflaq cribbed from Mussolini and Vichy sources.

Yes, there was a policy dispute, Lawrence backed the Hashemites, Philby & Cox backed Ibn Saud. Lawrence lost, the Hashemites were banished to Jordan, the ILkwan allies of Saud moved against the Shia heartland in Iraq; etc. There really was no real alternative to the Sauds by the time of the'32 oil concessions; which begot ARAMCO. Philby & ARAMCO were very cautious to hide the
truly disturbing nature of the Wahhabi state

Posted by narciso | April 14, 2008 10:39 PM

Will: "Iraq wasn't exporting enough oil before Hussein's removal to have much effect on the price."

After rereading Palast, it turns out that I somewhat misread the position. It wasn't so much that SADDAM was messing with OPEC oil (although he could if he wished since Iraq has the second largest reserves, if underdeveloped.) It was that the NEOCONS wanted to mess with OPEC. And the oil companies fought back.

Go read Palast's articles. He lays it out in detail, chapter and verse from talks with US government and oil company officials and official documents from the same sources.

"Politicians like votes".

No, they like bribes and votes. They use bribes to get votes and votes to get bribes. Your notion that all this was done just to win a political election is ridiculous. Elections are a means to an end, which is power and money.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 15, 2008 3:32 AM

Ahh... those were the days.

But then for some stupid reason America decided that they need to get on board with the bloodthirsty racist Zionist project and support Israel's moronic messianism and aggressive land-theft.

Fifty years of supporting the Zionists and Americans still wonder why Arabs aren't too fond of them.

Here's a hint: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N14369203.htm

Posted by saifedean | April 15, 2008 7:53 PM