Electronic Intifada and the mudkicker
May 1st, 2010 § 22 Comments
The Electronic Intifada has on its front page a ludicrous, factually challenged and logically flawed attack on John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s work — work that has been pivotal in shifting the debate on US Middle East policy. It is not clear to me what EI was hoping to achieve with this self-defeating move. But I don’t blame the author of the article — the fellow is clueless, he has cobbled together his screed from arguments and quotes randomly lifted from Noam Chomsky’s writings — I blame EI’s political and editorial judgment. At a time when Israeli colonization is intensifying, with the land in the grip of a neo-Fascist government, one’s priorities must be seriously upside down to spend precious time impugning the invaluable work of allies. It appears for some supporters of Palestine the need to feel self-righteous takes precedence over the imperative to be effective. Now, it is pointless to respond to someone who freely purloins others’ work, misuses sources, and constructs a slipshod argument. But I’ll give two illustrative examples of the kind of deliberate distortions that keep resurfacing in these ideological assaults on M & W (in both cases the specific claims have been ‘borrowed’ from Chomsky):
Chomsky has long maintained that the war in Iraq was for oil. He always adduces the same evidence to support his case. A state department document from 1945, a quotes from Zbigniew Brzezinski and another from George Kennan. Chomsky argues that Middle East oil is ‘a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history’ (State Department), and anyone who controls Iraq’s vast oil reserves gains ‘critical leverage’ (Brzezinski), indeed ‘veto power’ (Kennan), over competitors. All of this is indisputable: the United States would no doubt like to control Iraqi oil; it recognizes the ‘critical leverage’ the control affords it; and the critical leverage no doubt would grant it ‘veto power’. Now here is the problem: The State department document Chomsky cites is about Saudi Arabia, not Iraq. And it recommends that, precisely because Saudi oil is so important, US must always maintain friendly relations with the kingdom. Also, it does not follow that regime change is the only means to achieve these goals. Indeed, all of these claims have been just as true the past half century, but they did not necessitate war. The US has long preferred shoring up authoritarian regimes which could ensure its dominance and maintain a stable flow of oil.
Secondly, The Iraqi government was not withholding its oil; it was the US-led sanctions that were preventing it from reaching the markets. There is no evidence that Iraq was unwilling to cede control of its oil to the United States. Indeed, in the months leading up to war Saddam Hussein’s government made several attempts to stave off war by offering the United States exclusive concessions to its oil reserves. If oil was indeed the motivation, then one would expect plentiful evidence of oil interests influencing policy, or at least in selling the war. Chomsky offers none. Nor does he inform readers that Zbigniew Brzezinski, the man whose words he cites as evidence of Iraq as a resource war, was one of its most vocal opponents. Bzrezinski has called the war ‘a historic, strategic, and moral calamity…driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris’.
In his peculiar reading of Brzezinski, Chomsky ascribes him a view that is an inversion of what he actually says. Brzezinski, who saw the invasion as an unnecessary war by the pro-Israel neonconservatives, avers:
American and Israeli interests in the region are not entirely congruent. America has major strategic and economic interests in the Middle East that are dictated by the region’s vast energy supplies. Not only does America benefit economically from the relatively low costs of Middle Eastern oil, but America’s security role in the region gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the European and Asian economies that are also dependent on energy exports from the region. Hence good relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates…is in the U.S. national interest. From Israel’s standpoint, however, the resulting American-Arab ties are disadvantageous: they not only limit the degree to which the United States is prepared to back Israel’s territorial aspirations, they also stimulate American sensitivity to Arab grievances against Israel. (my emphasis)
Since the EI scrivener reproduces Chomsky’s exact interpretation of the ‘critical leverage’ quote along with Kennan’s on ‘veto power’, it is clear that he has never consulted the actual source. The same is true of his other comment about Israel serving as an offshore base for the US (which he mistakenly attributes to Chomsky, who is in fact quoting Alexander Haig). What this fellow doesn’t know is that the comment was uttered in a certain context: i.e., Haig’s bureaucratic struggle against Reagan (whom he saw as an intellectual inferior) in which he was keen to enlist Israel lobby support. (For more on this, see Patrick Tyler’s excellent A World of Trouble or my review of it). So long as the decontextualized quotes fit preconceived notions, who cares what was actually said or done?
The French sociologist Emile Durkheim called this the ‘ideological method’: the use of ‘notions to govern the collation of facts, rather than deriving notions from them’. In the a-historical writings of these analysts-on-the-cheap, one frequently finds that two and two add up to yield twenty-two. If US support for Israel and its interests in the region’s oil have remained constant over the years, it must mean the two are complementary. They aren’t. As I explained elsewhere,
United States Middle East policy has been defined since World War II by the tension between two competing concerns: the strategic interests which require good relations with Arab-Muslim states, and domestic political imperatives which demand unquestioning allegiance to Israel. That the US interest in the region’s energy resources has remained consistent, as well as its support for Israel, leads some to conclude that somehow the two are complementary. They aren’t. US President Harry S. Truman recognized the state of Israel the day of its founding over the strenuous objections of his State Department in order to court the Jewish vote and, more significantly, Jewish money for his re-election campaign. Every president since — with the exception of Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush, who saw no cause to feign balance — has sought to address this tension with attempts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. All these efforts have so far foundered. A study of US policy in the region over the decades, then, is inevitably a study of the causes of these failures [among which the Israel lobby looms largest].
It is not clear to me why The Electronic Intifada would undermine years of valuable work by giving platform to this discreditable piece of charlatanry. It has certainly made me reconsider any future association with the publication. We are at a juncture that calls for political maturity, to make the most of the openings recently created. This type of reactionary posturing and myopic absolutism merely serves as an alibi for inaction.
Excellent points. American oil companies, American business in general, and the US government is certainly concerned about Middle Eastern oil, but that does not mean that they advocate US wars in this region. Actually, the oil factor is often a reason that peace and stability are sought. Certainly, opposition to an attack on Iran revolves around the likelihood that it would impede the flow of oil and thus cause the already weakened Western economies to go into a tailspin.
And these groups would like to bring about a peace that would be satisfactory to the Palestinians and their supporters in order to reduce anti-American hostility in the Middle East region, which would provide a better climate for the oil industry. In short, their motives are economic and geostrategic, not moral.
An excellent book that deals with this subject is
M. Shahid Alam’s “Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism.”
See also Chas Freeman’s comments on the strategic non-value of Israel to the US
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/04/freeman-israel-is-useless-to-us-power-projection.html
My writing on this subject includes:
“War on Iraq: Not oil but Israel”
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_oilwar.htm
Also, see my comments at the end of Tim Wilkinson’s review of my book, “The Transparent Cabal,” which focuses on this argument in Chapter 18.
http://surelysomemistake.blogspot.com/2010/02/book-review-transparent-cabal-by.html
Press TV interview with Dr. Stephen Sniegoski about his ‘The Transparent Cabal’ book and similar:
http://tinyurl.com/thetransparentcabal
http://america-hijacked.com/2010/01/07/press-tv-interview-with-dr-stephen-sniegoski-author-of-the-transparent-cabal/
Powell’s Chief of Staff Mentions Role of Neocons and Israel in Iraq War (by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski as well)
http://america-hijacked.com/2010/05/02/powells-chief-of-staff-mentions-role-of-neocons-and-israel-in-iraq-war/
http://tinyurl.com/Wilkersonmentionsroleofneocons
And can we assume that Schumer is motivated by those same ‘corporate interests’ as well!:
Schumer: I’m on a Mission From God (to Be Israel’s Guardian in Senate)
http://america-hijacked.com/2010/05/04/schumer-im-on-a-mission-from-god-to-be-israels-guardian-in-senate/
Stephen,
I’m wondering, in light of the length of the US occupation of Afghanistan as well as the present obsolete status of the once proposed TAPI pipeline, has your opinion regarding the motive behind the ongoing NATO occupation shifted?
Certainly at this point we can view the endless US presence there as a military threat to Iran (surrounding Iran for Israel). Perhaps an article from yourself on the topic would be useful.
Reference:
PetroChina’s First West-to-East Pipeline Supplies 60 BCM
http://alethonewsa.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/petrochinas-first-west-to-east-pipeline-supplies-60-bcm/
Let me first say that Americans do not consider Afghanistan to be part of the Middle East–Central Asia is the usual designation. There has been an American interest in stability involving pipeline transit through Afghanistan, which I bring out in my book, “The Transparent Cabal.”
Some advocates of such a policy have sought cooperation with Russia and China to enhance global capitalism (similar to the support for détente with the Soviet Union by large American economic interests in the 1970s), while others take a more adversarial stance. One individual who has taken a more adversarial position towards China and Russia is Zbigniew Brzezinski. However, Brzezinski at the same time has been a staunch opponent of US wars against Iraq and Iran.
As I write in “The Transparent Cabal”:
“In his 1997 work The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives, Brzezinski portrayed the Eurasian landmass as the linchpin
for world power, with Central Asia being the key to the domination of Eurasia.
For the United States to maintain the global primacy that Brzezinski equated with American security, the United States must, at the very least,
prevent any possible adversary, or coalition of adversaries, from controlling that crucial region. And, of course, the best way for the United States
to prevent adversaries from controlling a region would be to control it by
itself.” (T.C., p. 129)
Furthermore, on the US focus on Iraq which began in 2002, I write that
“The adoption of the neocon agenda with its focus on Iraq and the Middle East would distract the United States from consolidating its control of Afghanistan,
which could have been used for the American domination of the Eurasian landmass along the lines of the thinking of Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Control of Central Asia had been abandoned, or, at least, put on the back burner, in the move to invade Iraq and thence achieve regime change elsewhere in the Middle East.” (T.C., p. 150)
In short, the US definitely has imperial interests but they often conflict with the interests of Israel. Brzezinski believes that the pursuit of the war agenda in the Middle East has weakened the US in other areas of the globe.
I think stability for pipelines are one factor for the continued occupation of Afghanistan. Also an abandonment of Afghanistan is perceived by the traditional (non-Zionist) foreign policy elite as being harmful to American global interests. If America appeared weak in Afghanistan, it would face more challenges in other parts of the world, some of which are more vital to the US.
Obama, whose popularity is flagging among centrists, has a political interest in not appearing weak. Moreover, the war in Afghanistan appears safer than a war on Iran, which, by causing a the curtailment of Gulf oil, would bring about the devastation of the weakened Western economies.
Brzezinski is a hopeless Russophobe and the position cited:
“Brzezinski portrayed the Eurasian landmass as the linchpin for world power, with Central Asia being the key to the domination of Eurasia.”
can only be seen as a sales pitch for US trouble making in a cold war paradigm.
Neocolonialism as practiced by all Western powers over the last half century has never been based on direct occupation. The British came to realize that direct administration was uneconomic more than a century ago. It just took awhile to establish the replacement system.
Afghanistan is an ideal springboard from which to harass, invade or destabilize either Iran or Pakistan with its “Islamic bomb”.
Steven, the analysis you present above places all the weight on the ramblings of a long out of power Pole who simply hates Russia, while at the same time disregarding all of the relevant facts.
Occupation of Afghanistan as an end in itself to contain Russia is simply not sensible. What could be achieved? Interference with Russian ties with Pakistan? Afghanistan is a poor transit corridor due to its mountainous terrain and lack of development. If one wanted to constrain Russia one would do so elsewhere.
Staying in a failed occupation is much more harmful to US imperialism than getting out. It would be smarter to simply pick on a different victim that was easier to defeat thus re-establishing global fear.
One thing is sure. The TAPI pipeline is not progressing and will no doubt never be built.
I cite Brzezinski because he is representative of the traditional foreign policy establishment which takes imperialistic positions but opposes US wars against Iraq and Iran. Here are two major establishment studies that have proposed improving relations with Iran.
A Council of Foreign Relations-sponsored task force produced a report entitled “Iran: Time for a New Approach,” released in June 2004, which called for US rapprochement with the Islamic Republic of Iran and an end to threats of regime change. The task force was co-chaired by former National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA director Robert Gates (who would become secretary of defense in December 2006); among other task force members were Brent Scowcroft, the elder Bush’s national security advisor, and Frank Carlucci, who served as national security adviser
and defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan.
The Congressionally-mandated Iraq Study Group (2006), co-chaired by James Baker (the elder Bush’s secretary of state) and former Democratic Congressman Lee H. Hamilton, also sought rapprochement rather than destabilization and regime change toward Iran. Iran was to be an made integral partner of an international Iraq Support Group, which would work for the stabilization of Iraq. The entire Iraq Study group plan was vehemently opposed by the neocons and undercut by their “surge” proposal, which was adopted by President Bush.
It should also be pointed out that before the 2001 terror attack, the US oil companies wanted to end US sanctions against both Iraq and Iran so they could do business with those countries. The occupation of Iraq did nothing to help US oil companies. The Iraq government has recently auctioned some oil fields and almost all leases have gone to non-US companies, including companies from China and Russia.
Yes Stephen, Iran, a developing nation, offers enormous opportunities to Western capital. These opportunities are denied to Western industries and financiers by those with the singular interest of protecting the ability of Israel to continue its expansion (the ongoing Zionist project).
My point is that it is time that we acknowledge the fact that what is occurring in Afghanistan is that vast new US airbases are being constructed within strategic striking distance of Iran. These bases are not well situated for combating resistance in the Pashtun areas in which the Taliban prevail nor do they serve any potential role in protecting any possible future gas pipelines.
My hope is that you can apply the fine logic you have used in assessing the Iraq situation to the unfolding reality in Afghanistan.
US Israel Policy got us into Afghanistan
http://www.tinyurl.com/israelpolicygotusintoafghan
http://america-hijacked.com/2010/02/17/us-israel-policy-got-us-into-afghanistan/
Civil War(s) in Iraq/Afghanistan: Back Door to War on Iran (by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski)
http://america-hijacked.com/2009/09/14/civil-wars-in-iraq-afghanistan-back-door-to-war-on-iran/
I too would like the matter of Afghanistan addressed, specifically the proposed oil and gas pipeline which seems to be the motivation for long term US occupation and destruction of the Afghan society.
What seems logical to us – that it is counterproductive and foolish to destabilize the middle east in order to gain control of its oil – may not be perceived as such by the neocons, whose greed exceeds all common sense (as evidenced by the war on Iraq and the continued support of Israel). In that light, it makes perfect sense. So do all those military bases all over the middle east. I’m sure the US doesn’t give a damn about the safety of the people living there; the bases are to protect the oil interests, this is so obvious.
Mary,
Since Bridas first proposed the TAPI pipeline in the 1980′s the facts have changed absolutely:
1) India has constructed new coal fired and nuclear power generation stations.
2) China’s energy demand has multiplied several fold.
3) New pipelines have been built that deliver most ALL of Central Asia’s energy directly to China where it serves the multi-national owned and operated manufacturing enterprises upon which world trade relies.
The theory that there is an energy transit motive behind the occupation of Afghanistan is simply no longer tenable.
I think that a third party besides AIPAC and the Oil Majors, whose power is not to be underestimated, is the military industrial complex. As a matter of fact the US structural economy and strategic will to world power require active wars here and there for their weapons to be used and sold, and their military presence to be expanded. Afghanistan and Iraq, apart from other considerations (geo-strategic, resources, Israel)obey to this consideration. Nowadays the military industrial complex has a problem: the source of its profits has dried, as the money was paid by the US, and this source seems to be in dire straits…
So a new goldmine has been found: Iran. Not by attacking it, as the Iraqi/Afghan inability to pay would increase with a vengeance by means of an attack on Iran. But Iran used as a bogeyman to sell expensive weapons and defense systems to the Gulf states may work perfectly, as those states do have the money to pay!
There is another consideration which should be taken into account, as far as the oil argument is concerned: perhaps the US interest was not to make use of the Iraqi oil, but rather to prevent others from doing so… In fact Russia, China, and even France were making good deals with Saddam, who on top of that decided to take Euro as Iraq’s exchange currency and to dump US dollar (a capital sin, especially back in the early 2000s).
Therefore I wouldn’t dismiss the oil factor so quickly out of hand.
I think that the US as an empire has been quite older than Israel, and trying to explain every single move by the empire as instigated by Israel may be quite wrong. It is true that the Zionist lobby isn’t idle, and as long as the US policy-makers can accommodate its demands to their specific policies, fine. But it isn’t always so. For instance it doesn’t help us to understand what is going on right now. I would hint that there is a clash nowadays between the Israeli interest and the military industrial and oil interests, which are the pillars of American imperialism (whereas Israel is a at best a convenient surrogate). Using an arrogant outpost to keep the region unstable (and has been its role so far) may be obsolete. What the empire and its structural and strategic establishment need now is to play down the game in the Middle East in order to give some attention to other theaters (Latin America, the Far East, South Asia, etc.). Israel’s greed has become a nuisance.
Hence the rise of Obama and the political revamp through the disruptive Middle East Obama/Clinton policies.
Enrique,
The Gulf states are on record supporting Iran’s right to nuclear power and have stated that they do NOT feel threatened by Iran. Moreover Iran has not committed an act of aggression in many centuries.
If they do accede to ramped up purchases of arms it would be because they were pressured to do so.
Secondly, maintaining the inexpensive supply of energy to the Western owned and operated export industries in China would be in the interests of the US (China’s most important trading partner).
Yes, there was a US empire before the “state” of Israel, but the US empire always served Jewish capital whether in London or New York.
Obama’s policies are simply extending and multiplying the Israelicentric policies of the Clinton and Bush regimes. Any change is certainly for the worse.
The pipeline argument is not entirely farfetched due to advanced technology enabling the literal moving of mountains. However, it is more likely that Afghanistan, besides being the place where empires go to die, is also just another episode in the US’ ongoing hegemony which began almost as soon as the country became independent of British rule. US history clearly shows that it has regularly gone to war as a remedy for economic downswings. Globalization seems to have made this gambit less effective and so more insidious ways of establishing and maintaining empire are being employed.
Sure, the US sells loads and loads of weapons to middle eastern countries, enough to make the rulers there happy, but the stuff is second rate or obsolete; therefore, these countries are never a serious threat to the US and Israel’s agenda. Global domination of the Third World, including the middle east, is clearly the objective and oil is a nice fringe benefit, but not the only one. In a global economy the dominant country will maintain its standard of living (theoretically) by having prevailed over competitors for goods and services.
The only country feeling threatened by Iran is Israel, and it is the cause of its own fear, being the neighborhood terrorist state continually abusing and murdering Palestinians under its own dirty little empire.
“In a global economy the dominant country will maintain its standard of living (theoretically) by having prevailed over competitors for goods and services.”
Precisely Mary.
The US is neither maintaining its standard of living or prevailing over competitors. Indeed US capital is allowed complete freedom of movement to exploit the lowest priced labor in the world at the expense of US investment and competitiveness.
The notion that the continual occupation of Afghanistan serves an economic end is unfounded. One needs only examine the present state of the US economy relative to the 90′s to clarify this.
Fringe theories about opium trafficking are put forward as an explanation but profits from international drug trafficking are found by controlling the user nation’s borders and law enforcement, not those of the producer nation. Opium can be grown in any number of sites.
A more consistent position would acknowledge the fact that capital is mobile, empires serve capital not nations and those who dominate capital in the Western world are Jewish supremacists and Zionists. Thus, the power of US militarism is harnessed toward ends that fail to further the national interests of the US.
There are no mountains being moved in Afghanistan. A fact based analysis would simply not find anything to support the “war for pipeline” mantra.
Then what is the purpose of the self-defeating war in Afghanistan? Psychological terrorism directed at the other countries in the region?
Mary,
We should view the occupation of Afghanistan within the context of the entire US presence in the broader region; aggression and intimidation against any potential foe of Israel. Psychological terrorism, as you state, does appear to be one purpose.
Not only does the US military presence in Afghanistan pose a real threat to Iran, but as with Somalia, havens for those who are engaged in resistance activities are encroached upon. Furthermore, there is an unfolding agenda against Pakistan which we simply don’t know what the final goal may be.
It is more useful to focus on the real situation than to cling to dubious and outdated explanations involving “resource wars”. Commodities are freely traded in the current global free market regime. US corporations are profiting from the new nuclear installations in India. Those who promote the notion of war for gas pipelines do a disservice to their audience.
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Thank you, Idrees and Sniegoski; I’ve read your articles and am in agreement.
I have a question about one statement, from the opening article: “Indeed, in the months leading up to war Saddam Hussein’s government made several attempts to stave off war by offering the United States exclusive concessions to its oil reserves.”
Can someone give me a source for further info on that? I can’t recollect hearing it before.
For Iraq’s peace efforts to prevent a US attack, see;
Sniegoski, “The Transparent Cabal,” pp. 338-39
Saddam’s desperate offers to stave off war, Guardian, Nov. 7, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/nov/07/iraq.brianwhitaker
I am not aware of anything recent on this issue. I think this information has been tossed down the memory hole with other inconvenient facts.
Thank you for your answer, Stephen. I’ve studied most of your online articles on the topic, but will have to acquire your book. It would be interesting to know more about what sort of oil concessions Hussein offered to avoid war, since it directly undermines the ‘war for oil’ claims. But of course we know that Hussein was quite willing to sell the U.S. oil at the market price, in any case.
How tragic that Iraq’s representative had to bargain for peace with the Prince of Darkness ! How futile.
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