When Oil and Water Mix
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
05/26/07 "ICH"
-- -- -The concoction becomes lethal. America’s relentless
drive to dominate the Middle East and its oil, blends well with
Israel’s insatiable appetite for water and unstoppable
expansion. It is said that oil and water do not mix – but when
they do, it becomes a lethal concoction with no easy solution.
The fatal blend engulfing the Middle East today seems to have no
end in sight other than darker clouds showering more innocent
blood.
The relationship between war and
resources is nothing new. “One drop of oil,” said Georges
Clemenceau, the Prime Minister of France in the second half of
World War I, “is worth one drop of blood of our soldiers.”
Today, the U.S. policy makers seem to think that one drop of oil
is worth one drop of blood of soldiers and the slaughter of
thousands of Arab and Muslim lives. However, to cover their
racist ambitions, they disguise their greed as ‘war on terror’
or ‘democratization’. Knowing that by controlling the world's
energy resources in conjunction with the superiority of the U.S.
military, the United States would be able to intimidate and
coerce the world more effectively, oil policy--wars or covert
actions -- have become the overriding determinant of the
American foreign policy.
In a New York Times article on
February 24, 2006, “Ted Koppel responded to what he described as
the Bush administration's "touchiness" about the charge that we
are in Iraq because of oil by stating the obvious, though often
unsaid, truth, "Now that's curious. Keeping oil flowing out of
the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz has been
bedrock American foreign policy for more than half a century."
Today control over the world's oil supply is at the forefront of
Washington policy makers' thinking, even if the president and
his team deny any such intent and talk publicly of reducing
dependence on Middle East oil by three-quarters of present
levels, an absurdly impossible goal. Two-thirds of the oil in
the world is in the Middle East, much of it under Iraq and Iran,
the axis of oil, the current targets of the U.S. War on
Terrorism. Control of oil is integral to Washington's official
goal of world domination, a goal stated this baldly in national
security documents.”[i]
While oil is the primary motive
for the United States, water ideology and expansion are Israel’s
motives for giving the Bush administration reason for war,
leaving Israel room to benefit from the Bush administration’s
ambitions.
In an astonishing interview[ii],
the world renowned Israeli military strategist, Martin Van
Creveld, whose books are required reading for the U.S. Army
officers, revealed that there was “no danger at all of having an
Iranian nuclear weapon dropped on us. We cannot say so too
openly, however, because we have a history of using any threat
in order to get weapons. And it works beautifully: Thanks to
Iranian threat, we are getting weapons from U.S. and Germany. I
think some people in Israel are deliberately exaggerating our
fears because it prompts the response, "Oh, those poor Jews.
They're going to have the Holocaust again. Give them weapons"[iii].
Israel needs weapons for wars of
aggression and expansion. In its nascent stages, Zionism not
only advocated a return to Palestine, but also the redemption of
the Jewish people through agrarian physical labor, “and the
transformation and rebirth of the ‘wasteland’ of Palestine into
a ‘land of milk and honey’”. The goal of the early Zionist
leadership became not only to secure all water resources, but
control them at their sources.[iv]
Following independence, the same doctrine continued. Israel
continued its policy of establishing Jewish settlements in areas
of Arab majority (e.g. Galilee) as well as peripheral areas
alongside the borders of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Negev.
Saul Arlosoroff, Chairman of the Israel-Water Engineers
Association says:
“The whole philosophy of the
Zionist movement was that you maintain control of the land, over
your country, by working there and being there. There’s no
doubt that if they move out of the border with Lebanon,
somebody else will be there, and that somebody is Arabs, not
Jews, and the government of Israel doesn’t want Arabs to be
there on the border, because the border will move further and
further south. The same is true in the Negev.”
Although today Israel imports
most of its food staples from the US, and while agriculture is
economically insignificant, in territorial-political terms it is
of utmost importance. In July 2006, Israel bombed and
destroyed Lebanon for 33 days as the world stood by. This was
oil and water mixing. Israel did not want Arabs on the border,
the United States wanted Hezbollah disabled, a fact readily
admitted by then ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton[v].
In January the Jerusalem Post
announced that Israel the Israeli Air Force had plans to buy
military equipment from the United States that would help
transform regular missiles into precision, satellite-guided
weapons. Israel is busy bombing and destroying Palestine
and the Gaza at the moment. While on the other hand, it
would seem that even a year is too long for the people of
Lebanon to recover from destruction and death. Lebanon is
being subjected to internal conflict; Arab is being set up
against Arab. After the renowned investigative reporter Sy
Hersh revealed that the United States, the Saudis, and the
Siniora government are engaged in covert operations in
funding and supporting the Jihadist movements in Lebanon in
a fight against Hezbollah, the Bush White House had to
reveal that it was sending military aid to the Lebanese army[vi].
Once the administration is assured of a full scale civil
war which will no doubt engage Hezbollah, the U.S. will
attack Iran.
The stage has been set. As
nine more U.S. warships enter the Persian Gulf threatening
Iran, and with news leaked (informative leak in this
writer’s opinion) that the Bush administration has
authorized new covert actions against Iran, it is
undoubtedly a sign that Bush & Co. hope to provoke a strong
reaction from Iran in an attempt to justify a military
attack. Having convinced the world that Iran’s nuclear
program is an existential threat to Israel, and outrageous
accusations abound, where even the once reputable paper
The Guardian is repeating the warmongers allegations of
linking Iran with al-Qaeda, the only enemy recognized by the
less savvy global citizen, and those thought to have been
responsible for 9/11- given that perhaps differentiating
between Sunni and Shiite may be too much of a burden for
some to consume,[vii]
the U.S. seeks to commit mass murder for the sake of power
and greed while Israel will expand unhindered.
One has to wonder how many more
millions have to be slaughtered before the collective
consciousness of humanity is stirred into action. Has the
ongoing stench of the genocidal concoction obscured our
compassion? Perhaps the fatal potion brings with it another
message - shame? Or perhaps even a glimmer of hope that there is
still time.
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has lived and studied in Iran, the
UK, France, Australia and the US. She obtained her Bachelors
Degree in International Relations from the University of
Southern California, Los Angeles, and she is currently pursuing
a Masters Degree in Middle East Studies concentrating in
Political Science. She has done extensive research on US foreign
policy towards Iran and Iran’s nuclear program.
[i]
Tabb, William, K. “Monthly Review.” New York:Jan 2007.
Vol. 58, Iss. 8, p. 32-42
[ii]
Levin, R. “Reality Fights: The Future of War, A talk with
military theorist Martin Van Creveld” Playboy Magazine. June
2007, pages 52-53
[iv]
Selby, Jan. “Water, Power & Politics in the Middle East: The
Other Israel-Palestinian Conflict” Palgrave & MacMillan
NY:2003 pp65-69
Click here
to comment on this and other articles
Send Page To a Friend
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|