'Middle East
Jul 10, 2008
SPEAKING FREELY
A last throw of the dice ...?By Bob Rigg
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.
When President George W Bush was sworn in as US president in the first year of a new millennium and a new century, the United States appeared to be at the height of its powers - astride the world stage like a colossus. Some time elapsed before it was realized that Bush had entrusted his foreign policy to a group of mostly unelected conservative ideologues whose world views had been shaped during the Cold War. Playing on the imperial associations of the Roman and British empires, they aimed to lay
the foundations for a century of unbroken American political, military, and economic pre-eminence to be known as "Pax Americana". The US had played a key role in the Middle East since the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)overthrew an elected Iranian government in 1953, replacing it with a monarch whose universally unpopular reign was terminated in 1979, when Iran's warring factions united to exorcise him. Iran's oil resources were the touchstone for the CIA intervention, even then. US domination of Iran and its oil, together with its strategic partnership with Israel, enabled it to call the shots throughout the Middle East until the Iranian revolution left it without either a regional powerbase or direct control over Middle Eastern energy resources. The vacuum created by the Iranian revolution had to be filled by a new outpost guaranteeing US influence over the region and its vital energy resources. Iraq and Iran were in the sights of US strategic and military planners. Foremost amongst them were the neo-conservative architects of the Project for a New American Century, including luminaries such as John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The neo-conservative scenario was clear: a devastating military strike would knock out Iraq's powerful armed forces, and its population would welcome US liberators with open arms. The US would then immediately strike at Iran, considered to be as weakened by the Western-backed Iraqi war as it was by the draconian and unilateral US trade embargo. Before the world could collect its wits, both Iraq and Iran would have been under direct US control. But the best laid plans of mice and men ... The rationale for the US attack on Iraq has in the meantime been unmasked as a patchwork of deceit. The phrase "shock and awe", coined to describe the US blitzkrieg, came to describe the faltering responses of the US military to the chaos and confusion of occupied Iraq. Incompetence, maladministration and corruption were the hallmarks of the heavy-handed and inept US response to Iraqi assertions of sovereignty. The Iraqi parliament has so far resisted immense US pressure to hand over the exploitation of Iraqi oil to US and other foreign companies, and to guarantee more than 80 long-term US military bases on its soil. The US government has been seen to repeatedly trample on internationally accepted legal, human rights and ethical standards, sacrificing truth and honesty on the altar of expediency and self-interest.'
the foundations for a century of unbroken American political, military, and economic pre-eminence to be known as "Pax Americana". The US had played a key role in the Middle East since the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)overthrew an elected Iranian government in 1953, replacing it with a monarch whose universally unpopular reign was terminated in 1979, when Iran's warring factions united to exorcise him. Iran's oil resources were the touchstone for the CIA intervention, even then. US domination of Iran and its oil, together with its strategic partnership with Israel, enabled it to call the shots throughout the Middle East until the Iranian revolution left it without either a regional powerbase or direct control over Middle Eastern energy resources. The vacuum created by the Iranian revolution had to be filled by a new outpost guaranteeing US influence over the region and its vital energy resources. Iraq and Iran were in the sights of US strategic and military planners. Foremost amongst them were the neo-conservative architects of the Project for a New American Century, including luminaries such as John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The neo-conservative scenario was clear: a devastating military strike would knock out Iraq's powerful armed forces, and its population would welcome US liberators with open arms. The US would then immediately strike at Iran, considered to be as weakened by the Western-backed Iraqi war as it was by the draconian and unilateral US trade embargo. Before the world could collect its wits, both Iraq and Iran would have been under direct US control. But the best laid plans of mice and men ... The rationale for the US attack on Iraq has in the meantime been unmasked as a patchwork of deceit. The phrase "shock and awe", coined to describe the US blitzkrieg, came to describe the faltering responses of the US military to the chaos and confusion of occupied Iraq. Incompetence, maladministration and corruption were the hallmarks of the heavy-handed and inept US response to Iraqi assertions of sovereignty. The Iraqi parliament has so far resisted immense US pressure to hand over the exploitation of Iraqi oil to US and other foreign companies, and to guarantee more than 80 long-term US military bases on its soil. The US government has been seen to repeatedly trample on internationally accepted legal, human rights and ethical standards, sacrificing truth and honesty on the altar of expediency and self-interest.'
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