FRFI 142 April / May 1998
hat the USA and Britain did not unleash the threatened bombardment of Iraq in February was due to growing tensions between the imperialist powers and US calculation that its regional position would be harmed rather than strengthened by going ahead with the attack. There can be no doubt that the contentions over oil, the Gulf, Middle East and Caspian regions will be resolved by force and that the USA must use violence, sooner rather than later, if its position as dominant imperial power is not to be undermined. TREVOR RAYNE reports on the context of the latest confrontation in the Gulf.
The Middle East contains 66.4 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves and ‘the Gulf is the world’s hydrocarbon heartland’. Control over oil and the Middle East not only secures fantastic profits but whoever wields that control exerts tremendous power over potential rivals dependent on oil. Germany and Japan lack domestic oil supplies and China, the world’s sixth biggest oil producer, became a net importer of oil in 1993 and by 2010 is expected to be the world’s biggest oil importer.
Cheap supplies of oil and gas are essential to the industries and living standards of the handful of developed capitalist nations. The readiness of the imperialists to resort to war to get cheap energy is demonstrated by the strategies of two world wars this century. This winter’s expedition was the twenty-eighth British military intervention in the Middle East since 1945. The 1991 assault deposited the explosive equivalent of seven Hiroshima bombs on Iraq, killing a quarter of a million people. New York Newsday magazine on 2 February this year revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorising the tactical use of nuclear weapons against Iraq under ‘certain conditions’ (John Pilger, New Statesman).
This time the USA and its British sidekick desisted as Iraq allowed inspection of its palaces and other sites for weapons development. However, the USA cannot allow itself to appear in any way constrained by the United Nations which brokered the deal with Saddam Hussein, for that would give the green light to European interests especially to lever the USA out of its dominant regional position by doing deals with the local rulers.
Meagre opposition
Just as the Labour Party in opposition was full square behind the 1991 war on Iraq so the 1998 Labour Party in government was the most enthusiastic (and only) bellicose ally of the US war plans. In 1990 thirty-five MPs voted against the proposed war. In 1998, with a far larger complement of Labour MPs in the House of Commons than in 1990, just twenty-five MPs voted against the motion for war, of these four were from Plaid Cymru.
As the threats to Iraq intensified and the missiles were shown on television to be ready for firing, the level of protest in Britain at the government’s involvement in the war plans was meagre. The biggest demonstration being 2,000 people in London on 21 February. Where were the thousands who marched with CND ten and fifteen years ago? Like the majority of Labour MPs they were happy to go along with the demonisation of Iraq if that is what the Labour Party leadership wanted.
Labour in government and opposition has always been a trusted defender of British multinational corporation oil interests; with the head of BP sitting in the Labour cabinet, nothing less than the utmost vigilance is to be expected. People interested in the prevention of war need only examine the history of the Middle East this century to understand that Labour is as ready to use violence in defence of oil interests as any Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan. Cheap oil is essential to the comforts and privilege that the British middle classes and better-off workers enjoy and Labour, old or new, will be very vigilant in caring for these.
Iraq’s price
On 2 August 1990 Iraq occupied and subsequently annexed Kuwait, thereby commanding twenty per cent of the world’s oil supplies. The entrance into Kuwait also threatened Saudi Arabia, containing the world’s largest oil reserves. Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi ruling class challenged the imperialists’ domination of oil and presented them with independent and imperialistic ambitions of their own. This could not be tolerated and so Iraq was not just to be driven from Kuwait but returned to a pre-industrial level.
It must not be forgotten that the USA and Britain sold Iraq the means with which to produce chemical and biological weapons. These weapons killed 45,000 Iranian soldiers between 1983-88 and 5,000 Kurdish civilians at Halabja in 1988, without complaint from the powers that supplied the means of death. As long as they were used to maintain the regional status quo there was no problem. After all it was the RAF that introduced chemical weapons into the Middle East in the 1920s, gas bombing Kurdish villagers into submission on the orders of Winston Churchill. Now, those means of producing weapons are being used as a reason to cripple Iraq and demonstrate the hegemony of US imperialism.
The World Health Organisation states that 1,211,285 children died in Iraq between August 1990 and August 1997 as a result of UN embargo-related causes; chiefly malnutrition, diarrhoea and unsafe water. The Financial Times reports only half of Iraq’s 8,000 farms operating and these manage only 20 per cent capacity. Egg and chicken production, staple to the diet, have fallen to an eighth and fourteenth of their pre-sanctions level.
British Foreign Secretary Cook said, ‘…it is not the UN which is starving Iraqis… there are no sanctions on importing food and medicine.’ As John Pilger points out, this is false. Pesticides, fertilisers and animal feed equipment are classified as ‘dual use’ and banned. Baby food, enriched powdered milk, school books, paper, pencils and shoelaces are banned. Medical equipment, including bandages, X-ray equipment, refrigeration for antibiotics, ambulances etc. are banned by UN sanctions. This is the kind of calculated deceit from Cook that amounts to Labour’s ‘ethical foreign policy’.
Inter-imperialist rivalry
Foreign Secretary Cook repeated that Britain was ‘leaving no diplomatic avenue unexplored’ in the search for a peaceful solution to the dispute over UN inspectors. These ‘avenues’ seemed always to lead to the doors of Middle Eastern governments and other world powers in a failing attempt to gain endorsements for the military project. Of the Gulf allies that lined up behind the USA in 1991 only Kuwait gave support. Russian president Yeltsin and Chinese prime minister Li Peng issued a joint statement denouncing the use of force. Russia warned that an attack on Iraq would cause bilateral relations to suffer and Yeltsin spoke darkly of World War Three. Iraq owes Russia up to $30 billion for 1980’s weapons supplies. France refused to endorse any new military threat. Germany, Netherlands and Portugal offered ‘support facilities’ only, Oman (dominated by Britain and the USA) and Diego Garcia (leased by Britain to the USA) offered military bases and Canada and Australia offered token forces.
The absence of key US Middle Eastern allies in the line up and the opposition of major world powers made the US administration think twice. Britain sought a new UN resolution to endorse the attack but that would clearly not be forthcoming. The USA proposed to go ahead under the mandate of the 1990-91 resolutions but withdrew at the prospect of revolt in the Middle East and competitive manoeuverings of the other world powers.
While the USA tries to isolate and enfeeble Iraq, Libya and Iran with embargoes, European capital is using the opportunity to strengthen its position in the Middle East at the USA’s expense. On 13 and 14 March 1995 the Financial Times ran reports that heads of major oil companies were in Baghdad discussing multi-billion dollar contracts with the Iraqi government. Those who got in place before the sanctions are lifted would be most favoured. Present at the meeting were French oil companies Elf Aquitaine and Total, the Italian Agip, Repsol of Spain and Deminex, Germany’s biggest oil exploration and production company. Also present was Mitsubishi Oil of Japan. In 1997 Total announced a major investment in Iran in defiance of the USA, which wants to guide Caspian Basin energy flows through Turkey rather than Iran.
Eni is Italy’s biggest firm and main petroleum company. Its chief executive Franco Bernabé calls for the scrapping of sanctions against Libya, Iran and Iraq. Eni is the largest foreign company operating in Libya, it has a production contract pending with Iraq and has long established relations with Iran. Bernabé states, ‘Since the Second World War the USA has applied 104 sanctions. Of these, 61 have been applied between 1993 and 1996… and the reasons for imposing sanctions are spreading and covering all sorts of issues including religious, ethical, human rights, military and countless other grounds,’ (Financial Times 18 March 1998).
Foreign Secretary Cook’s March visit to Palestine, Israel and the Middle East was, in part, intended to repair damage done to British interests by the isolated engagement at the side of the USA in February. The European Union donated 53 per cent of the aid given to the West Bank and Gaza Strip during 1994-96, the USA’s portion is 9 per cent. Europe’s money is part of a strategy to win allies in the Middle East. While the British ruling class is willing to throw its military forces into action alongside the USA it has to watch out that it is not being out manoeuvred by its European counterparts; the USA may not always be the best bet – its military reach was extended in 1991 and had to be paid for by Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf; 1998’s effort was going to be a much smaller show.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union the struggle for resources and markets between the major capitalist powers is intensifying. The consequences of this struggle are proving to be bloody and threaten to get much worse. US and UN intervention in Somalia was concerned with obtaining access to African oil reserves and securing sea routes south from the Gulf. We now learn of terrible massacres of a thousand or more people by US troops on a single day in 1993. The brutal crushing of Chechnia’s 1995 revolt was intended to preserve Russian control of oil flows from the Caspian Sea. Pakistani and thereby US complicity in the Taliban victory in Afghanistan is partly to counter Iranian and Russian influence over proposed pipelines from the Caspian Basin and Central Asia. Western China is being targeted for provocations against the Chinese government; this part of China will be crucial for future oil imports from the Caspian Basin and Central Asia. Turkey becomes the second biggest recipient of arms supplies to try and put down the Kurds and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) to make eastern Turkey/northwest Kurdistan safe for oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.
In the thick of all this are the energy multinationals and none more so than BP, Royal Dutch Shell and British Gas. They cannot afford to have any conscience about the wars they sow about them. Their prize is black gold and beside it life’s purposes dim.
In the last century the contest played out from the Caucasus through Central Asia was called the Great Game. Its main contenders were Russia and Britain and the prize was India. All along its route soldiers and civilians fell; the victims of the Game. Now, the pundits tell us there is a new Great Game, played from north Africa to the western borders of China and the prize is energy and domination of the planet. Unless the grip of the multinationals is broken from the governments of the world and the resources are taken into collective ownership of all the people then the the new Game will ignite many more wars.
