From: rakeshb@stanford.edu
Date: Sat Feb 22 2003 - 12:39:34 EST
Cyrus wrote in 8493: > > I haven't read Chomsky's comments. Yet, I gather from your > description that > he might have read the "Aspects of India's Economy," Nos 33 and 34, > December > 2002. This special(double)issue is devoted entirely to :Behind the > Invasion > of Iraq." The authors in its recent context raise the question of > why the > U.S. government is trying to buy friendship from the Government of > India and > how such a relationship is motivated by blocking China. I have read > this > last night after I have sent you the unedited and fragmented version > of this > note. > > The core of this argument (and perhaps Chomsky's) is based on an > approach > that I would call "third-worldist," for the lack of better term. > First, the > focus of the entire argument is on the traditional notion colonialism > and > control. Secondly, it implies that Pax Americana is alive and well > and that > the United States is still the hegemon. Third, it explicitly argues > that > the impending U.S. war against Iraq is for oil. Fourth, it states > that OPEC > is a cartel. Finally, it proposes that the apparent and/or alleged > shifting > of the Middle East oil producers from U.S. dollar to euro is the > cause of > war. Just for now, let me say that this sort of approach had > stopped > thinking and living intellectually beyond at least a couple of > decades ago. > Yet, it amount to insult on the injury when an individual like W. > Clark (?) > via the so-called Independent Media Center focuses on only one of > these > points, namely the so-called currency change, and write up more than > 16 > pages disconnected, unintelligible, uninformative, and seemingly > left-leaning piece in order to tarnish the credentials of the left > (this was > already posted on OPE-L). A few of us American leftists who are invoking the name of Chomsky are actually arguing that the US intends to control Iraq and then every major supplier of oil (presumbably the non OPEC ones as well) so that it can credibly threaten any rival--say Europe or China--with a total cut off from oil and thus get that rival to bend to US will. That is, these leftists see the US design as one of classical colonial control over all oil supplies because of the political leverage which it will provide. In my opinion, these are fantastic and absurd arguments which do little for the credibility for the left. First, this doesn't require the control of Iraq but the sea lanes. So this cannot explain the drive to conquer Iraq. If the US is at war with say China then it has to control the sea lanes to Chinese ports. But the US is not conquering land locked Iraq in order to bolster its naval capacity! At any rate, if the US tells its new colonial dependency of Iraq not to export to say China or another huge market such as Europe someone else will. The incentives are too great not to break a US declared embargo; and there is no way that the US could keep all the OPEC countries, plus say Russia and Argentina and Norway, from exporting to China. I don't know what is driving this point of view. Perhaps it's the idea that the US intended to choke Japan off from oil (Indonesian in particular) in the interwar period. But the oil market is now global--there are many points of supply, tankers are relatively cheap. Even India could export oil. The US is not going to war in order to cut off one day all oil exports to a selected rival. I don't think Rumsfeld or Cheney imagine in their wildest dreams that they will cut off oil exports to China or France in order to make either bend to its will. Of course the US would like to stabilize and increase its claim on the disbursement of oil rent and maintain the pricing of oil in dollars and put to use some of this idle capacity in what is doubtless thought to be a worthy goal. The former two already gives the US--including its financial sector--tremendous relative advantages over its rivals. This is enough to explain the drive to war. One does not have to construct fantastic scenarios of the US believing that it can gain the power to make every oil supplier embargo a select US rival. Yours, Rakesh
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