I’ve studied post-war foreign policy pretty extensively (or, at least, I’ve read a lot of books on the subject) and I really do believe that America erred in seeing every problem in the world through the prism of how it benefited or hurt world communism. But we can take that criticism too far. And I think the left generally does take that criticism too far. The reasons are obvious. The U.S. committed a series of overreactions and blunders during the Cold War. But one thing we generally got right (or, at least, were prudent to pursue) was molding our Middle Eastern policy around undermining Soviet influence in the region.
I can’t really do a whole essay on the subject right now, because it is too broad and covers too many regions and conflicts to allow a quick overview. But in the immediate post-war environment, we were right to see the Persian Gulf as a vital national security area whose energy was key to any global struggle against the USSR. And, obviously, the USSR borders the region, while we are half a world away. So, it was critical that we maintain a world class navy, and that we establish some friendly ports and strategic airbases.
When John McCain (and the Washington Establishment, more generally) talks about spending 100 years in Iraq, he is thinking about these types of strategic interests. I don’t think the view that radical Islam is the new Soviet totalitarianism is a valid one. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have some legitimate concerns about the world’s energy supplies falling out of our control. And I don’t mean concerns about profits for western energy companies. I mean getting into a situation where energy can be withheld to blackmail or coerce us into taking actions we do not feel are in our national interests, or in the interests of our allies.
The Establishment never likes to talk in there terms. They like to pretend we are interested in combating Soviet expansionism, or Islamic terrorism, or in promoting freedom and democracy. But we are not going to change our policies until we deal with reality as our policy makers see it.
Right now, the policy makers are concerned that the Iraq War has empowered Russia, China, and Iran. And that’s true…that is exactly what the war and high gas prices have done. And, on balance, Russia, China, and Iran are on the undemocratic side of the world power equation.
What I think this means is that we have to face up to two tough realities. First, we need to stop doing what we’re doing in Iraq because it is hurting us and empowering undemocratic powers and undemocratic instincts within those powers. But, second, we do have an interest in maintaining our power in the Middle East. I hate to say that, because I’d like to pull everything out of the Middle East and let them focus their frustrations on solving their own problems rather than on hurting us.
I don’t think that is prudent at the moment, but it is so desirable that we should put all our energies into finding ways to make it so that we do not have a strategic interest in maintaining secure access to the Middle East’s energy supplies. And that means we should use everything that is in the toolbox, including off-shore drilling, nuclear, new refineries, solar, wind, conservation…whatever. All of it should be on the table.
I am pretty sure that we can’t fix our foreign policy and energy problems unless we are willing to both stay with more of a presence in the Middle East than I would like, and become much more aggressive about creating our own energy (including things most liberals vigorously oppose).
Thoughts?
I think we should just get out. Period. Of the whole area. We will NEVER expend the necessary dollars on alternative sources until we are forced to. The ending of the ‘Petro Era’ is inevitable.
Our presence is used as an excuse to do inexcusable things.
nalbar
If we had acted when Jimmy Carter was asking us to turn down the thermostat in the 70s we would have long solved the energy dependence problem.
Of course crude oil prices collapsed and off we went to buy the biggest gas guzzlers and exurbia and gave up on the great momentum we had then.
But its never too late to start. The single largest impact we can have in the shortest time is energy efficiency and conservation. That means more fuel efficient motor vehicles like diesels, more mass transit usage, more telecommuting, local and seasonal produce, better insulated and more energy efficient homes and offices.
The rest is icing on the cake IMO.
On the topic of the Middle East and foreign policy in general, we’ve first got to stop thinking and acting as imperialists. We have never done empire well. And in this day and age the natives can make it very painful as we continue to see in Iraq. The first rule should be if we know nothing about another culture let’s not assume they want to be like us. That conceit will always bite our ass. Second, we can’t just bully people anymore specially when we need their money to keep us afloat. This concept fostered by those “hardnosed” types that we should “control” the natural resource or else we will be blackmailed is rather silly. Oil is a fungible commodity. And if we consume less each year of course it will be better. The best foreign policy is to stand for our values here at home – like upholding our Constitution.
The problem with staying out in the middle east is that we are a huge part of the problem. Staying runs the risk of exacerbating situations that are not in line with the long term interests of our people. We also run the risk of no just being targetted but also increasing the chance of seeing our puppet rulers overthrown by every action we take in the region. A withdrawl may well actually increase the chance of some of them staying in power.
We also shouldnt miss that the Palestinian question is still seen as central to middle eastern stability and we are not seen as anywhere near an even powerbroker on that front. In shorty our middle eastern policies are disastrous and complete withdrawl is certainly no worse and potentially better than all the alternatives.
With the decline of gas and the desperate need for alternative forms of energy we need to focus our attention, R&D and money on securing an energy secure future that does not rely so much on oil. With this realisation there is no real need to stay in a region that is in turmoil (and unfortunately fueled by our very invovlement) unless of course we want to spend all our effort supporting the latter days of our empire in firefights and imperialist ventures that will nothing except further exacerbate our power decline although for the rest of the world our power decline may actually be a good thing, which is something not many of us are willing to even consider.
Sadly as usual the peopel will not be told the hard truths of our polices or lack of them and nothing will probably change. And sadly we are so poorly sevred by our own media on this who are worse than a state propaganda service.
Anyway President McCain and a continuation with the flirtation with world domination anyone?
We’re spending something like four billion dollars a week on military operations in Iraq. Total cost so far of half a trillion or so, projected costs of a trillion or more. All in a futile effort to sustain a status quo that is by definition unsustainable, with no end in sight and no good alternatives.
Imagine if we had invested that much over the past five years on Apollo-like programs of R&D into safer, cleaner nuclear technologies, more efficient solar technologies, efficient vehicle technologies that don’t require fossil fuels, more energy efficient building technologies.
Jimmy Carter was right thirty years before anyone else. And for his sins we tossed him out for a B grade movie actor who did a pretty good gig playing a governor of California.
I have to disagree with this comment:
They’re not “legitimate interests” because, when the rubber meets the road, it ain’t our oil. It’s theirs. Any other viewpoint is imperialism. “Our control?” This is why they hate us.
Now we can find a “mutually beneficial relationship,” but – bottom line – we have no moral right to their oil if they decide to cut it off. If the bartender decides to stop serving you because you’re obnoxious every time you walk into the bar, that doesn’t give you any moral claim on his whiskey, even though you have an alcohol dependency he helped create and has profited from. You’re an adult and you knew oil was habit forming when you said “fill it up.”
We have the same “interest” in the Middle East that a crack addict does in maintaining their supply. And like a junkie, we’ll threaten, steal, murder if we have to, in the interest of keeping a steady supply of the drug coming. Uncle Sam has a needle in his arm.
The cure is the same it’s been since the Carter Administration – get the hell off Mideast Oil. We’ve sunk a fortune into the region and as far as I can see we’re pissing it all away trying to buy friends on both sides of every conflict. And now the ante has been upped to blood – the junkie is selling her kids for another fix.
Develop domestic energy sources (yes, including nuclear) – no one can form a cartel to control the wind, the sun, the tides, the warmth under the earth.
It’s tempting to say “Let them all figure out how to play nice without us as the teacher in the schoolyard.” But then the reply comes: “It could turn into Yugoslavia on steroids!” Probably true. And our arms dealers have profited nicely from their addiction to hate. So we have a certain moral parity there, eh?
You come to the right conclusion in the end, but the first step in beating an addiction is to face the truth of what you (and they) are. We’ve been feeding each other’s dependencies for a half-century. But Americans have had a real issue with facing reality since at least 1980, and even moreso since 2001. $100 a barrel oil hasn’t gotten us to break free from the death waltz yet. How high will it have to go? What price empire?
You do your handle proud. The imperialistic notion of us being somehow entitled to ‘regulate’ the world’s oil supply is what has put us into the miserable position we’re in. We’re not that concerned about the ME for our own energy needs, but employ it as a means of control to manipulate the economies of both allies and foes. And speaking of being blackmailed and coerced – aren’t we the prime culprit in applying those very tactics to nations whom we have disagreements with. How quickly we’re willing to apply trade restrictions, sanctions etc. to people not willing to kowtow to our demands. And yet, here we have a rather progressive thinker write a diary using the very same fallacy as starting point that people on the neocon end of the political spectrum are so fond of. Imagine, for a second, the howls of indignation that would be heard in Washington if China were to establish permanent military presence in the ME, using the same claim of national interest. The very best thing to happen for our energy independence would be the renunciation of the claim of American exceptionalism.
Oil should be owned by some world wide democratic government and the “profits” from it distributed somehow world wide.
So since we’ll never see that, it almost doesn’t matter who owns or controls the oil, assumming the other extreme, a world dominating facism, ala the NAZI’s, aren’t using it really badly.
Since the owners of the oil are tied to the users of the oil a natural constraint exists on abuse. Sorta.
The world supply of oil should be being used to create sustainable alternatives to it. Sooner is better than later, but too late for that eh?
Look, Europe is right now “subservient” to Russia’s energy “blackmail”. And how big a deal is it to them. Well, yes sorta, but really they are tied together and Russia can’t squeeze too hard because it hurts them back. Sorta like China and the dollar.
So what’s the worse case scenario for Iraq. Another Iran, right? How bad is that? Not very.
So don’t you get sucked into the new cold war of oil games.
Given the way the United States has botched things up in the Middle East it isn’t obvious to me why we shouldn’t let China and Russia manage the balance of power there. Not good for Israel, but that’s their problem, not ours. As to the oil in the ground, it was always going to have to be shared out among every country that can afford it. There are just more countries that can afford it now.
For some useful reading, I suggest you consider reading John Darwin’s After Tamerlane. It’s been out in the UK for about a year, and came out in the United States in February. He is a diplomatic historian at Oxford and has written a magnificent survey of the shifting balance of power in that part of the world over the past 600 years. On the basis of that history, we would be better cutting our losses.
Also read F. William Engdahl and Michael Klare about our oil history and future.
I don’t think Russian/Chinese domination of that region is a good idea. I think that’s a very bad idea, just as it would have been during the Cold War. That’s the challenge we face. Staying engaged while disengaging is no easy mission.
I understood what John McCain was saying. I also understand what the US has been doing in the Middle East and plans to do elsewhere.
The Russians and the Chinese ( I won’t mentioned Latin Americans) also read the PNAC manifesto and we are fucked!
We no longer have the means to control anything and by what right should we expect to?
We’re going to have to change our way of life. How many people on this blog have been making changes?
Someone earlier mentioned Carter. We should have listened.
If under new leadership in November we can reverse the damage that has been done by past administrations, perhaps we can forge cooperative relationships and they’ll still sell us the oil vs cutting our belligerent asses off!!
I wonder if our Middle East policy wasn’t merely adjusted for Communism, while maintaining the overall policy of preferred access to the region’s natural resources. That is to say policies were modified to meet the Communist threat, but not owned by that change. Cleaning up the inconveniences such modifications created is definitely part of the Cold War legacy. But that’s not what got us into the occupations game. It only delayed us finishing the game the colonial powers started when they drew and redrew the political maps in the region, carving and re-organizing nations into political impossibilities those many years ago. Regional instability and strongman government has always equated with eventual opportunity for conquest. That was certainly maintained even during the cold war through fomenting internal unrest, Israel policy, and promoting wars such as the 10 year Iran-Iraq war..
If you read post-war military analysis of the Soviet-Nazi war, access to gasoline was considered the decisive factor. It wasn’t so much an adaptation to communism, as a realization that the U.S. needed to secure access to those resources and deny them to the Soviets. Considerations of self-determination were afterthoughts in the immediate aftermath of the war.
But we did pursue a second track for providing self-determination through the creation of the UN. Now we are living in the second track with a bad hangover from the first.
I wonder how that pipeline across Afghanistan is coming along. I mean, how’s the war in Afghanistan going? I mean, how’s the pipeline going?
Before we went into Iraq to find WMDs and that bad man Saddam we were paying around 20 bucks a barrel for oil. I mean, before “we” went into Iraq to directly control the oil there “we” were paying 20 bucks a barrel. So now “we” are paying over one hundred a barrel to “them.” I mean “us.”
Boo, you are sounding like you’re sitting on the board of Exxon. America doesn’t even use oil from the Mideast. Oil companies control that oil and take their profits from it before it goes to Europe, India or China. Their hundreds of billions of profit are measured against the trillions our country spends killing people for their profit. Think: Hessians for international corporations. And the oil companies, “our” oil companies are as patriotic as Blackwater. George W. Bush is not protecting America’s interests, he’s protecting Big Oil’s interests with American lives and money.
The purpose of permanent bases in the Middle East are so that corporate interests are protected from other economic forces, like the people in Iraq whose oil money used to pay for and fix their electric and sewer systems. And so our planes can fly to other places where there’s oil and then bomb people who happen to live there.
So when I ask how the pipeline in Afghanistan is coming along, I do so because I figure that’s the real reason why “we’re” dawdling around there. It can’t be because “we’re” still looking for Osama. “We” want to stick a straw into all those countries named Stan on the other side of Himalayas and start sucking out the oil.
Private citizen Herbert Hoover had the rights to the oilfields around Baku when the Russian Revolution took it all away from him. On paper he was supposedly the richest man in the world. That’s why at the end of WWI, when he was in charge of relief in Europe, he witheld food from the people of Russia. So, you see, “we’re” just getting back what was “ours.”
you have a very parochial way of looking at U.S. interests. Why do you think Japan pays us to occupy their country? Hint: see how much oil they import from the Middle East.
Look at how dependent Europe already is on Russian natural gas.
I checked my mailbox today. No checks from Japan. Again! Maybe you’re getting checks from Japan, or maybe neither of us are “us.”
At least you could argue that the state-owned Russian petroleum industry benefits the people in theory.
Funny how often free trade involves killing people and taking their possessions. And how we pay for “our” interests but we don’t benefit from them.
Just saying.