Introduction
(Inside the WW II and Cold War Context)

During and in the aftermath of World War II, U.S. policy makers conducted a largely unreported and almost subterranean battle with their Western allies over control of the colonial resources and markets in the colonial empires and sphere of influence of Britain and France.  This battle — guided, on the U.S. part, by its longstanding strategy of creating an open door access for U.S. business interests in all parts of the globe  — was manifest in such actions and events as the American 1941 to 1944 effort spearheaded by State Department diplomat Robert Murphy to strike deals with the Vichy French over French held North Africa and inside France behind the back of the Free French forces led by General Charles de Gaulle.    It was discernable in the successful U.S. policy makers’ 1944-1946 effort in the newly liberated Italy to displace British influence by supporting the Ivanoe Banomi government against the British attempt to install a government led by King Victor Emmanuel and Prime Minister Pietro Badaglio while simultaneously containing and crushing the communist and socialist led Italian partisan movement, and, later, in deposing the Ferruccio Parri left-coalition government.   It was much more visible in the U.S. policy makers’ successful strategy to crack into the oyster of the enclosed British empire known as the sterling bloc.
After President Harry S. Truman had put the economic screws to the newly elected British Labor government by unilaterally cutting off all U.S. lend lease supplies to England on August 21, 1945, British negotiators were forced to go to Washington with hat in hand to bargain for a $3.8 billion loan  which they got at a 2% interest rate.   But, more importantly, the American policy makers also got all that they wanted and that, effectively, was virtually the whole British empire.  After all, in order for the British to get the 1946 U.S. loan, they had to give up all import restrictions in all parts of the British empire, and they had to end the principle of non-convertibility which meant that they could no longer stipulate that all of the huge amounts of foreign currencies that had been built up in various parts of the British Commonwealth during the Second World War had to be exchanged only for pound sterling.    Explaining what this Washington loan agreement really meant for the British empire and U.S. post war objectives, Lord L. S. Amery, an old British Tory and one who had been in on empire building for most of his life, put it bluntly.  Note well, that this guy was intimately involved with the Washington loan agreement, and, given his personal history, he could smell imperialism when it walked in the door.  Here, from his 1946 book, The Washington Loan Agreement, is his summary of the meaning of those crucial loan agreements:  "The object of American policy is . . . to set up . . . money and money power outside national control as the dominate factor in [the] world economy. . . . We have been forced to pledge ourselves to a commercial scheme which is to deprive us . . . of any effective control of our own home market."  Then, with amazing prescience, he spelled out the American strategy and goal:  "I rather like the robust buccaneering spirit of modern American economic imperialism.  Only . . . it is against the British Empire . . . The British Empire is the oyster which the loan is to prise open.  Each part of it . . . is to be swallowed separately, to become a field for American industrial exploitation, a tributary of American finance, and, in the end, an American dependency."   In Amery’s description of what had occurred in Washington, there was almost a half admiration for what the Americans had pulled off, but, still, one can almost hear him weeping as he observes that they were doing it to the British empire.
At approximately the same time that these events were transpiring, the "number two person in the U.S. embassy in Moscow from 1944 to 1946,"  professional diplomat George F. Kennan, fired off his analysis of the emerging U.S.-Soviet antagonism in early 1946.  It became famous as the "Long Telegram."  And, while it diagnosed the nature of the antagonism between "West" and "East," it did not offer any prescription for dealing with it.  The main point of the Long Telegram was to describe the Soviet Union’s leaders and communist system as being "‘committed fanatically to the belief that with the US there can be no modus vivendi’" and that those leaders believe "‘that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure.’"   In his Long Telegram, Kennan stressed the importance of educating (or, more accurately, orienting) the U.S. public to this point of view, and, once he returned to Washington in 1947, he contributed mightily to that effort.  His starting point was based on the assumption that the communist ideology and institutional structures of the Soviet Union rendered it inherently expansionistic.  Consequently, the U.S. must counter — on a global scale — that intrinsic, aggressive impulse with "long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."   As for the global dimension of this containment policy, Kennan argued that "the Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvres of Soviet policy . . ."
Even before this pronouncement appeared in print, leading U.S. policy makers were attempting to prevent the communist-led Vietminh movement in Vietnam from moving into the vacuum of collapsed Japanese and French power at the end of World War II.   The U.S. position on French Indochina had evolved from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s French anti-colonialism in 1943-’44, along with the U.S. lending some OSS military assistance to the Vietminh’s struggle against the Japanese occupiers in mid-summer 1945,  to one of accepting a restoration of French rule over Vietnam as the best of the options in keeping with larger U.S. global objectives.   Already, near the end of July 1945, U.S. policy makers had opted for a reinstallation of French rule over Vietnam in their Potsdam agreement.   And, just to cover all the bases, that action was followed by President Truman’s August 14, 1945 General Order #1 which granted to General Douglas MacArthur, the Allied Supreme commander in the Pacific, the power to designate which of the groups to whom the Japanese were to surrender their occupied territories everywhere in Asia.   In short, by attempting to determine the political complexion of Asia in such a way, the American policy makers were fully inserting themselves into the politics of Asia and casting a gigantic American umbrella over the entire region.  So, with the Potsdam agreement and Truman’s sweeping order, the U.S. policy makers made sure that the Japanese turnover of Vietnam went to the French — inserting British/French and Nationalist Chinese troops into the newly liberated Vietnam in September 1945  — and they tried to excluded the battle toughened Vietminh from the scene.
And, yet, the other side of that U.S. policy maker support for a French return to Vietnam was their opposition to a French neo-colonialism that might close the door on U.S. access to Vietnam’s resources and markets.   A U.S. State Department memorandum, "American Interests in Southeast Asia," of March 26, 1945, neatly stated the overarching U.S. goal, "‘The economic interests of the United States . . . demand not only free access and trade in Southeast Asia, but also a rising standard of living there.  This would increase the market for our products in the area, and markets are one of our primary interests in the postwar world.’"   Thus, while the U.S. policy makers went nearly all-out in supporting the French against their Vietminh foes in the French Indochina War from 1946 to 1954,  they were persistently uncomfortable with any sign that the French intended a recolonization of Vietnam that might threaten to truncate U.S. economic interests.  So, when, in 1950, U.S. policy makers extended U.S. recognition to the French puppet Bao Dai regime in Vietnam, they were not only supplying the French war effort against the Vietminh, but they were putting ever more pressure on the French to grant the Bao Dai regime more powers.  In such a way, U.S. policy makers hoped to simultaneously exclude the Vietminh and pry wider open that French semi-closed door in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, off in Greece, there came an opportunity to open more doors.  So, on March 12, 1947, came the Truman Doctrine.  And it, as the Americans prepared to supplant the exhausted British in the Greek civil war, clearly announced that, while other nations might think in terms of spheres of influence, U.S. policy makers thought in terms of the whole world as their sphere.   Thus, Truman’s "emotional" announcement took the form of contending that there was such a huge communist menace in Greece and beyond that the U.S. must expand its Monroe Doctrine so that it covered the whole globe.   In its most significant rhetoric, the Truman Doctrine asserted that the U.S. would "support" all "‘free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure.’"   And it is very important to note that these words meant that there did not have to be any evidence of "outside pressure" to justify U.S. intervention into the societies of foreign nations.  Truman’s pronouncement was soon followed by Kennan’s tremendous hit with the work that won him lasting fame and the establishment’s accolade of the "father of containment."  It was the "Sources of Soviet Conduct," signed "X."    Thereafter, the containment strategy and the Truman Doctrine’s Manichean view of the world were incorporated into what became the cornerstone of all subsequent U.S., Cold War strategic thinking, National Security Council memorandum 68 (NSC 68) in 1950.   Describing the need and method — military, economic, and political — for the "containment" of communism, especially Soviet communism, NSC 68 laid out the arguments and strategy for doing the job.   And the job — protecting the global perimeter of the open door, free-market place needed by the U.S. economy — required huge expenditures.  Thus, one vital "purpose of NSC 68," as Secretary of State Dean Acheson bluntly explained, "was to so bludgeon the mass mind of ‘top government’ . . . that the decision [for containment] could be carried out."  And, he famously continued with a statement that epitomizes the elite art of prevarication, "If we made our points clearer than truth, we . . . could hardly do otherwise."
Today, that outlook, objective, and technique for gaining policy approval by preying on people’s fears through the propaganda of exaggeration — as well as displaying certain policy makers’ extraordinary hubris — is marvelously reflected in the September 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America.  That statement reads, in part:  "[W]e will not hesitate to act alone…to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively . . . and . . . compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities . . . [O]ur best defense is a good offense. . . .
 To contend with . . . the many security challenges we face, the United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia . . . This broad portfolio of military capabilities must also . . . ensure U.S. access to distant theaters, and . . . assets in outer space . . . Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States."

Middle East Oil and the U.S.-British Conflict

Now, as I begin concentrating on the Middle East and U.S. interest in its oil, it is necessary to again credit to those 1943-1950, U.S. political and business leaders who, coming out of a decade of depression and four years of war, had such a lucidity about U.S. power and future needs that they developed a policy consensus on what would insure the prosperity and domestic tranquility of U.S. capitalism in the post-war period.   If you look at the diplomatic record in the years between 1943 and 1950, you will see the framework of that open door, global market place that they worked so hard to build ("Grand Area").   And, as stated, a great deal of it centers upon the need to break up those old empires of France and, especially, Great Britain which had long before created those trading blocs that excluded the U.S. and which controlled the valuable minerals and resources out of which private investors in the United States might make money.  Getting full access to those resources was the very fluid drive behind any real U.S. economic prosperity and expansion.  And, so, we get, in the State Department Office of Economic Affairs the comments of Charles Taft who was writing in May of 1944: "‘Our metal resources and our minerals are running out.  And so will our oil, eventually.  We must safe-guard ourselves against that eventuality.’"   And imagine what it must have seemed like to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, when Roosevelt, in 1943, tossed off the following remark: "‘We wish to make the natural resources of colonial territories available to the world as a whole.’"   Well, that seems like a democratic principle, but, if you are Winston Churchill, it looks as though the Americans were out for the British Empire and its Middle East oil fields.
  Note, as well, that the U.S. was no neophyte in the oil business.  It had given the world John D. Rockefeller, after all.  And, look, his companies ("Standard Oil Group," according to his anti-monopoly critics), in the 1920s, still controlled 45% of the refined oil products in the
world.   Besides, remember that the U.S., as it entered World War II, already had tremendous sources of petroleum.  It had its own oil supply in the U.S., and all of the oil in the Western hemisphere was really in the American pocket.  So, the U.S. was an oil giant, and it really did not need any oil in the period of the 1930s and ’40s.  Europe, of course, did need oil.  But, the U.S. oil companies, if they could get Middle East oil concessions, could sell that additional oil in Europe for pure profit.
  Now, keep that in mind when you compare it with the British stake in the Middle East.  Because, for the British, oil was really a life and death matter.  It was control over Middle East oil that enabled the British to fuel their navy, protect their empire, and supply British capitalism with the energy to make it all work.  So, despite the fact that some American oil companies had already bullied their way into a sort of cooperative arrangement with some British firms to exploit Arab oil in the late 1920s and early 1930s — even forming, in 1933, the 50-50 jointly owned Kuwait Oil Company (KOC)  — the rivalry between the U.S. and England over oil became a kind of underground but monumental struggle at the end of World War II.
  And note that Standard Oil of California (Chevron) had already established a monopoly over the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.  It had gotten a concession from Abdul-Aziz Ibn-Saud, in 1933.  But, Standard Oil didn’t have a world-wide marketing arrangement, and so it entered into an agreement with Texaco.  Together with Exxon and Mobil these companies formed the famous consortium known as ARAMCO (Arabian-American Oil Company).   And ARAMCO started to distribute that oil through a subsidiary called Caltex.  So, Saudi Arabia became the preserve of ARAMCO.  Then, there was Gulf Oil.  And Gulf Oil was blue-blood U.S. wealth, Andrew Mellon.  Now, Mellon, in order to break into the Kuwait oil fields, had to force a deal with the reluctant British dominated Anglo-Persian Oil company  instead of the virtually powerless Kuwait Shaikh (Admed Al-Jaber) to give Gulf 50% control over the newly formed U.S./British firm called Kuwait Oil Company in 1933.    And that meant control of about 20% of all the known oil reserves of the world at that time.  In short, the U.S. was already deep into the Middle East oil fields before World War II.
  And, then, there was Iran.  And the British were in Iran.  And they had been there a long time.  And they were always to remain there, or so they thought.  But the U.S. policy makers fooled them, didn’t they?  Actually, there was something terribly predatory about the U.S. wanting into Iran.  Iran is a fantastic country.  It’s a big country and very under populated and very mineral rich.  But Iran, or Persia, as it was called, had long been a sort of playground for conflicting imperialisms in the19th century — the imperialism of Tsarist Russia, that atavistic, landed imperialism encroaching down from the Caucasus, and there was the British because they were incessantly protecting their imperial life-line to India.  Then, at the beginning of the 20th century, for the British, it meant oil.  And, in 1914, an Armenian adventurer and millionaire named Calouste Gulbenkian  sold his concession of Iranian oil and mineral resources in a 480,000 square mile area to an Englishman named William Knox D’Arcy.   And D’Arcy was one of those fantastic Englishmen — the Cecil Rhodes variety.  The kind that devoured whole continents for breakfast.  Anyway, D’Arcy, with considerable assistance from the British government, got that concession in Persia.   The price he paid was only 50,000 pounds.  So, when he died, in 1917, he was almost a billionaire.  And he had never even been in Persia.
  Well, in 1914, the British government, under the instigation of a young Winston Churchill,  got into D’Arcy’s company, the Anglo-Persian Company.  At the time, this sort of government purchase was unprecedented.  And the British government bought up 2.2 million pounds worth of shares in that Anglo-Persian Oil Company and became a 51% majority stockholder in it.   But, interestingly, against the objections that the British government was going into a private enterprise and that the government would control the private enterprise, Churchill answered that there would be no government control.  He said that there would be only two government representatives on the board of directors, and they would have no veto power on commercial activities.   All this meant that the British government would get its oil, and the more numerous British public would be paying for the smaller private investors’ gain.  That’s what empires are all about anyway, isn’t it?  Of course, Churchill didn’t picture it that way.  Then, some forty-three years later, in 1957, Churchill bragged that, by 1937, the government had already gotten 16 million pounds in dividends.  And, he added:  "‘You see, all of that expansion of the British navy, between 1912 and ‘14, didn’t cost the tax payers a penny.’"   Maybe.  But perhaps we should think about what it cost the Iranians in lost resources.  That cost is something that is usually left out of imperialist calculations.
   Anyway, from 1914 to 1942, the British held onto their Iranian oil.  And, then, in late 1942, the Americans sent in their equivalent of a D’Arcy.  He was Arthur Millspaugh.  Now, he’d been in Iran before, and he was not only a powerhouse in controlling Iranian politics, but he also had the view that a country like Iran couldn’t possibly maintain its own independence.  And he knew that Iranian state weakness was the "open door" opportunity for American investment to get into Iran.  And, by 1943, Millspaugh had maneuvered so well that the American Ambassador in Iran, Louis Drefuss, informed the State Department:  "‘Dr. Millspaugh is gradually assuming control over the entire financial and economic structure of Iran.  He is probably the only man in Iran, at present, who can obtain passage through the parliament [i.e., Majlis],of any piece of legislation that he considers necessary.’"   And so, Millspaugh put the Iranian commercial attaché in Washington in contact with an American oil company called "Standard-Vacuum."  And it was the Far Eastern affiliate of Socony-Vacuum (Mobil).  And out of that contact, Standard Vacuum got an oil concession in the southeast of Iran.
  Now, when the British heard about this, they just flipped out because they felt that they had been duped by their wartime, American ally.  But, in 1943, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull rebuffed them and summed up the U.S. position:  "‘Because of the importance of petroleum, both from the long range viewpoint and for war purposes, the Department of State looks, with favor, upon the development of all possible sources of [oil] supply.’"   This meant, "What is mine, I keep.  What is yours, I take."  And that became very clear when Churchill answered Hull, and, in effect, said:  "Well, oil, it’s a very, very good question, the oil economy.  Well, wouldn’t it be better, rather than discussing just Middle Eastern oil, to discuss the entire world oil economy."  In other words, Churchill was proposing that the British get into Caribbean and South American oil.  And Cordell Hull replied (I’m paraphrasing):  "‘Oh, no.  Now, we must keep it simple.  We will discuss only Middle Eastern oil.  And, if that is a successful discussion, then, perhaps, later on, we’ll open the discussion to some larger questions.’"
  By February 18, 1944, U.S.-British friction over oil had heated up to such a state that, after almost two hours of arguing about oil with Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, Lord Halifax, the British ambassador to Washington, wired London that "‘the Americans were treating us shockingly.’"   He, then, requested and was granted an audience with Roosevelt.  Whereupon Roosevelt sought to placate him by showing him a hand drawn map of the Middle East which he had sketched.  Then, Roosevelt stated that the British could keep their Iranian oil while the U.S. and Britain would share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait, and the U.S. would keep all Saudi Arabian oil.   Churchill, of course, knew when a stiletto was at his throat.  So, on February 20, 1944, just hours after reading Halifax’s report of Roosevelt’s inspired cartography, he wired the U.S. president:  "‘There is apprehension in some quarters here that the United States has a desire to deprive us of our oil assets in the Middle East on which, among other things, the whole supply of our Navy depends.’"   Then, Churchill ended his remarks right on the button:  "‘We are being hustled.’"
  Well, that called forth a terse reply from the king of the hustlers who retaliated by stating that he had received reports that Great Britain was "‘eyeing’" and trying to "‘horn in’" on American oil company concessions in Saudi Arabia.  And, then, after receiving yet another wire from an apparently unrepentant Churchill, Roosevelt — always ingenious — tried to mollify a deeply suspicious Churchill with these honeyed words:  "‘Please do accept my assurances that we are not making sheep’s eyes at your oil fields in Iraq or Iran.’"   And Churchill, never to be out done in the bold faced ingenuity department, sent back a proposal for cooperative imperialism.  He wrote:  "‘Let me reciprocate by giving you fullest assurance that we have no thought of trying to horn in upon your interests or property in Saudi Arabia.’"   Then, seeking to appeal to Roosevelt’s sense of loyalty to an ally in the so-called "Grand Alliance" against fascism and to stake out Britain’s imperialist claims at the same time, Churchill wrote that, while Britain sought no territorial advantage as a result of the war, "‘she will not be deprived of anything which rightly belongs to her after having given her best services to the good cause.’"   Well, that didn’t cut any ice.  And five weeks later, the State Department put out its policy directive on oil entitled "Petroleum Policy of the United States."  And the conclusion of that directive is just great, for it states that United States policy should, in general, aim to assure to this country a substantial and geographically diversified holding of foreign petroleum resources in the hands of United States nationals.  This would involve "‘the preservation of the absolute position presently obtaining [in the Western hemisphere], and therefore vigilant protection of existing concessions in United States hands coupled with insistence upon the Open Door principle of equal opportunity for United States companies in all other areas.’"
  Well, that was about as blunt (or rapacious) as one could get.  And the implementation of that policy was not at all unsuccessful because the Americans backed their words with actions.  Already, as early as mid-February 1943, the U.S. presidents of Socal (Harry C. Collier) and Texaco (W.S.S. Rodgers) — the two partners in California-Arabian Standard Oil Company (Cassoc) — had gone to the State Department to appeal for financial aid to keep the British from horning their way into Saudi oil concessions and, thereby, possibly ousting Socal and Texaco.   They argued for a two pronged counterattack on the British and the vulnerable Saudi regime.  First, they pointed out that U.S. government financial aid to King Ibn Saud would keep the British from obtaining dominance over his finances.  And, second, they knew that by connecting the U.S. government to their private interests in the fragile, two-decade old Saudi Arabian state, it would make it more difficult for any Saudi government to nationalize its oil concessions without paying a heavy penalty to the U.S. state.
  Well, Secretary of the Interior and the Petroleum Administrator for War, Harold Ickes, took up the cudgels of Socal and Texaco.  He warned Roosevelt, on February 16, 1944, that the British were trying to "‘edge their way into [Saudi Arabia]" and what was "‘probably the greatest and richest oil field in the world.’"   Two days later, FDR authorized lend lease assistance to Saud’s regime.   This is known as "buying one’s way in."  Soon, thereafter, the Army-Navy Petroleum Board released an alarming finding that projected a serious shortage of oil for 1944.  Then, Ickes, with the backing of the Army and Navy high command, took over the government entity known as the Petroleum Reserves Corporation and turned it to the task of acquiring actual U.S. government ownership of Texaco and Socal’s joint company, the California-Arabian Standard Oil Company, and its foreign oil reserves in Saudi Arabia.   But Ickes’s plan fell apart when the presidents of Texaco and Socal were joined by other fairly paranoid U.S. oil company executives in killing the plan because they thought that it smacked of a move to nationalize U.S. oil ownership.   Still, U.S. financial aid kept flowing into the Saudi coffers,  and it was terrifically successful.  By the end of 1944, Secretary of State Hull was replaced by Edward Stettinius who was a son of a partner in the House of Morgan.  And being closer to the sort of realties that exist in the world, Stettinius told Roosevelt that the U.S. must establish an even bigger foreign aid program to the leaders of the oil rich country of Saudi Arabia.
  Meanwhile, in mid-February 1945, Roosevelt really alarmed Churchill by not only meeting and charming King Saud but by stopping off to confer with King Farouk of Egypt and Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as well.  Since Churchill still considered virtually the entire Middle East as Britain’s private preserve, he saw Roosevelt’s actions as blatant poaching, and he "‘burned up the wires to all his [Middle Eastern] diplomats.’"   He ordered them to get him audiences with every single leader with whom Roosevelt had just met so that he might counter Roosevelt’s charm campaign.  Then, only three days after Roosevelt had met with Saud, Churchill met with the Saudi leader, but it didn’t go well, and, despite Churchill’s belated gift of a Rolls-Royce, Saud remained in the U.S. camp.   And, so, the contemporary affluence of Saudi Arabian sheikhs began.  And, so, the private U.S. oil interests got greater access to Saudi oil.  Thus, the U.S. policy makers’ strategy of buying their way in with public tax monies was very, very successful.  It displaced the British to a subordinate position in the rich Middle East.
  Of course, neither money given for the oil concessions nor the revenues from Arab oil sales ever reaches the majority of the Arab population.  And "buying in" does not eliminate the need for state violence to maintain control.  After all, from the early 20th century to the early 21th century, Western powers have been extremely blunt on their intention to control Middle East oil.  That is why Saddam Hussein’s 1990 grab for Kuwait oil acted like a red flag before a bull when the Western powers were confronted by it over territory that they had so long dominated.  As President George Bush-the-elder stated the fear:  "‘If I had sat around and waited . . . we would be paying 10 bucks for oil.’"   And, under a different Bush Administration, from President George W. Bush to Vice President Dick Cheney to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on down to other high ranking officials there are powerful decision makers who are intimately connected with the oil and energy industries.  So, while major U.S. oil company executives have been extremely wary of offending Saudi officials and the leaders of other oil-producing countries by being identified as associating themselves with the anti-Saddam Hussein resistance or with U.S. war plans, one unnamed executive from one of the largest of the world’s oil companies did tell journalist Robert Dreyfuss:  "‘I would say that especially the U.S. oil companies . . . look forward to the idea that Iraq will be open for business.’"   Likewise, another unidentified major oil company executive grumbled that the nationalization of Iraq’s oil, in the period between 1972 and 1974, had led to the ousting of oil multinationals and the establishment of state-owned enterprises elsewhere in the Middle East.  "‘Even,’" he complained, "‘in Saudi Arabia, all we can do is buy their oil.’"   He added that "U.S. companies . . . want to return to greater direct control . . . and a greater share of the profits."   Whether that objective will be reached is for the future to tell.  At this point, all we know is that the U.S. appointed "proconsul" of Iraq, Paul Bremer, declared on May 26, 2003, that Iraq was "‘open for business,’" and he is launching a privatization program  that may lead to what the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James E. Akins, said is the dream of some U.S. oil multinationals.  And that dream is the "‘parceling [of] Iraqi oil out to American oil companies.’"
But, those special oil company interests are only one aspect of the much larger global, open door aim for capital that has been pursued by a long line of U.S. policy makers.   In that context, the recent focus that the author of Resource Wars, Michael T. Klare, throws on the threat to vital energy resources posed by an Osama bin Laden-motivated Islamic take over of the "pro-Western Saudi monarchy" makes sense.  After all, such a conquest "would give [such an Islamic movement] control over one-fourth of the world’s remaining supply of petroleum.  Success in this campaign would also deprive the United States of a major source of wealth and power . . . [so] it is precisely to avert this peril that Washington has long endeavored to protect the Saudi regime against its various enemies."   Yet, as during the Cold War, there is something more than simply a U.S. defensive posture in maintaining control of Middle East energy resources.  There also is a powerful U.S. expansive urge in the decisions and actions of some current U.S. policy makers.  As they have stated in their September 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, it is not only their intention to employ U.S. power unilaterally and "preemptively" in "compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities," but also to permit no emerging challenge to U.S. military hegemony over the entire globe.  "Our forces [scattered on land bases and at sea as well as "assets in outer space"]" the statement declares, "will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States."   Now, achieving that objective will not only require tremendous energy expenditures, but it is one that ancient Roman imperialists could readily salute.  And we know what happened to them, don’t we?
 PAGE   9
 

 PAGE   9
 
 
 

Notes and Citations

  This essay should really have been co-authored by Professor Harvey Goldberg (deceased) because so many parts of it were not only inspired and composed from notes acquired in his history classes, but it reflects so much of his sardonic wit and tremendous analytical insight and research work that it may be more properly identified as a mere paraphrase of his work.  In fact, he was the greatest lecturer and analytical historian that I have ever known.
  Following in the intellectual/scholarly footsteps of American historian William Appleman Williams (The Contours of American History, 1951, 363-370;  The Roots of the Modern American Empire, 1969, 377-379) historian Thomas J. McCormick explains this point in the following concise manner:  "[T]he Open Door Policy . . . represented America’s  basic response to the . . . question of how to expand.  Instead of closed doors, [it’s] open markets; instead of political domination, [it’s] economic hegemony; instead of large-scale colonialism, [it’s] informal empire.  In short, a most interesting hybrid of anti-colonialism and economic imperialism." (128)  With regard to Great Britain, McCormick adds these pertinent remarks:  "[T]he promulgation of the Hay [Open Door] Doctrine did pass the scepter of open door champion from Great Britain to the United States. . . . Now, as Britain’s power wavered . . . the United States made a concerted effort to adopt the nineteenth-century policy to the expansive needs of a twentieth-century industrial America." (127)   See McCormick, Thomas, J.   China Market:  America’s Quest for Informal Empire, 1893-1901.  Chicago:  Ivan R. Dee, 1990, 128, 127.
  Goldberg, Harvey.  Class lecture on "U.S. and Vichy France" in Contemporary Societies.  History. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974.
  Miller, James E.  United States and Italy, 1940-1950:  The Politics and Diplomacy of Stabilization.  Chapel Hill, NC:  North Carolina UP, 1986, 96, 98-101, 104-105, 113, 132, 135-137, 158-160.  After bringing the Parri government down, the U.S.-supported Alcide DeGasperi government was established with massive amounts of U.S. aid flowing to it.  See Ibid., 208-210.
  McCormick, Thomas J.  America’s Half Century:  United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War and After.  Second Edition.  Baltimore:  Johns Hopkins, 1995, 55.
  Ibid., 155.
  McCormick, America’s Half Century, 55-56.  My emphasis.  Note well, that the American negotiators with the British played some real hard ball in getting the British to open up their markets throughout the British empire as the main price for obtaining that loan.  The Americans wanted into that closed, British market area of the sterling block, and, early in 1946, the British seemed to be using the principle of "non-convertibility" to keep them out and to acquire the money that they could use to rebuild their bankrupted economy after World War II.  By employing the principle of "non-convertibility" on all parts of the British empire, the British were requiring that all the foreign currencies that had accumulated in India, Australia, Egypt, and throughout the Commonwealth could only be converted into a special form of pound sterling.  This converted pound sterling, of course, would be used to buy British goods and services, and, so, help to put England back on her financial feet.  But the Americans cut off lend lease to the vulnerable, newly formed Labor government.  Then, in the 1946 loan negotiations, the American negotiators demanded, as a condition of the loan, that the British end their efforts to retain their closed empire and end the principle of non-convertibility.
  Amery, L.S.  The Washington Loan Agreement.  London:  McDonald, 1946, vi-viii, xi.
  May, Ernest, R. ed.  American Cold War Strategy:  Interpreting NSC 68.  New York:  St. Martin’s Press, 1993, 5.
  Ibid.  Kennan maintained that the Soviet leaders and communist parties throughout the world would strive to:  "‘a.  To undermine general political and strategic potential of major western powers. . . . b.  On unofficial plane particularly violent efforts . . . to weaken power and influence of Western Powers on colonial backward, or dependent peoples. . . .  c.  Where individual governments stand in path of Soviet purposes pressure will be brought for their removal from office. . . .  d.  In foreign countries Communists will, as a rule, work toward destruction of all forms of personal independence, economic, political, or moral. . . .  e.  Everything possible will be done to set major Western Powers against each other. . . .  f.  In general, all Soviet efforts on unofficial international plane will be negative and destructive in character, designed to tear down sources of strength beyond reach of Soviet control.’" See Ibid.
  Kennan, George, F. ("X").  "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs.  25 (July 1947): 575.
  Ibid., 576.
  Gardner, Lloyd, C.  Approaching Vietnam:  From World War II through Dienbienphu.  New York:  W.W. Norton, 1988, 69-70.
  Ibid., 64-65.  See also Olson, James, S. and Randy Roberts.  Where the Domino Fell:  America and Vietnam, 1945 to 1995.  Third Edition.  St. James, NY:  Brandywine P., 1999, 24.
  Olson 24-26.
  Gardner, 60, 61-62, 69-70.  See also, Olson 25.
  Goldberg, Harvey.  Class lecture on "French Imperialism in Vietnam" in Contemporary Societies.  History.  University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974.
  Olson 26.
  Gardner 66-72.
  Gardner 69, n. 51, 366.
  Olson 38.  By the end of 1953, the U.S. was supplying the French Indochina war effort with $500 million annually, and, rising to $1.1 billion in 1954, that military aid represented nearly 78 percent of France’s war expenditures in 1954.            .
  Gardner  77-78, 86-87, 115-116, 118, 139, 152, 153.
  McCormick, America’s Half Century, 21, 75.
  Ibid., 75.
  Ibid.
  Kennan, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," 566-582.
  NSC 68:  United States Objectives and Programs for National Security (April 14, 1950), A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950 (Marked "Top Secret" and dated, above the table of contents, April 7, 1950).  This document is located in May, ed., American Cold War Strategy:  Interpreting NSC 68.
  The almost 60 page NSC 68 was primarily authored, in 1950, by 43 year old Paul H. Nitze, under the supervision of Secretary of State Dean Acheson.  It was declassified from its "Top Secret" status only in 1975.  There is no analyst who has so accurately and acerbically highlighted some of the essential meanings and features of NSC 68 better than author Noam Chomsky.  So, his extracts from it and his analysis of it are worth quoting at length.  He writes:  "The `compulsion' of the  `slave state' [i.e., USSR] is to achieve `the complete subversion or forcible destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society' in every corner of the world that is not yet `subservient to and controlled from the Kremlin.'  Its `implacable purpose' is to `eliminate the challenge of freedom' everywhere, gaining `total power over all men' in the slave state itself and  `absolute authority over the rest of the world.'  By its very nature, the slave state is `inescapably militant.'  Hence no accommodation or peaceful settlement is even thinkable.  We must therefore act to `foster the seeds of destruction within the Soviet system' and ‘hasten [its] decay' by all means short of war (which is too dangerous for us).  We must avoid diplomacy and negotiations [unless the Soviet Union is substantially weakened] except as a device to placate public opinion because any agreements ‘would reflect present realities and would therefore be unacceptable, if not disastrous, to the United States and the rest of the free world,’ though after the success of a ‘roll back’ strategy we may ‘negotiate a settlement with the Soviet Union (or a successor state or states).’
The authors concede that the fiendish enemy is far weaker than its adversaries in every relevant respect.  This disparity confers further advantages on the enemy:  being so backward, it ‘can do more with less,’ at once midget and superman.  Our situation is thus truly desperate. . . .
The innate evil of the slave state is highlighted by comparison with the United States, a nation of almost unimaginable perfection.  Its ‘fundamental purpose’ is ‘to `to assure the integrity and vitality of our free society, which is founded upon the dignity and worth of the individual,' and to safeguard these values throughout the world.  Our free society is marked by `marvelous diversity,' `deep tolerance,' `lawfulness' . . . [and] a commitment `to create and maintain an environment in which every individual has the opportunity to realize his creative powers.'  The perfect society ‘does not fear, it welcomes, diversity’ and ‘derives its strength from its hospitality even to antipathetic ideas,' as illustrated by the McCarthyite hysteria of the day, perhaps. . . . ‘The essential tolerance of our world outlook, our generous and constructive impulses, and the absence of covetousness in our international relations are assets of potentially enormous influence,' particularly among those who have been lucky enough to experience these qualities at first hand, as in Latin America, which has so benefited from ‘our long continuing endeavors to create and now develop the Inter-American system. . . .’" (26, 27)
NSC 68 [then ironically] warns that we must overcome such weaknesses in our society as the `excess of a permanently open mind,' `the excess of tolerance,' and `dissent among us.'  We must ‘distinguish between the necessity for tolerance and the necessity for just suppression' [of presumably subversive ideas]. . . .  It is particularly important to insulate our `labor unions, civic enterprises, schools, churches, and all media for influencing opinion' from the `evil work' of the Kremlin." (57-58).  [Such is how NSC 68 goes from praising the open society to censoring its openness].  See Chomsky, Noam.  World Orders Old and New.  New York:  Columbia UP, 1994, 26, 27, 57-58.
  Acheson, Dean.   Present at the Creation:  My Years in the State Department.  New York:  W.W. Norton, 1969, 222, 374, 375.
  The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, 6, 14, 29, 30.
 As for the U.S. policy makers who were guided by that objective in the World War II and immediate post World War II period, no historian has explained what motivated them and what they sought to achieve better than has Thomas McCormick.  Explaining that "American leaders . . . fought the war not simply to vanquish their enemies, but to create the geopolitical basis for a postwar world order that they would both build and lead," he writes, "Concretely . . . [t]hey aimed to insure that the periphery in the Pacific rim, the Mediterranean basin, and Latin America would be integrated, under American aegis, into a global market economy, its resources equally open to all core powers."  (32)  In that context, McCormick states that the "Cold War . . . is merely the subplot, part of a larger story that some historians call America's hegemonic project. . . . The architects of American global dominance [including such men as Franklin Roosevelt, Robert Murphy, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, Averall Harriman, James Forrestal, and Paul Nitze among others] viewed . . . nationalism as the bane of the 20th century — the underlying cause of both world wars, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the epic revolutions in Russia, China and Mexico.  The efforts of individual states to achieve national prosperity through projectionist, colonial, autarkic, or command economies had produced . . . inefficient and redundant national economies . . . [and that], in turn, tempted some states to use military force, imperialism or revolution to redistribute the global economic pie. . . . [However, American policy makers, after World War II, had] hope . . . [for] the abandonment of economic nationalism. . . . [and they believed that] only a single, integrated, free world market, organized around principles of [free trade], comparative advantage and economies of scale, could realize capitalism's full capacity . . . where there would be only winners and no losers.  That free [market] world, however, could only be achieved if political and military power was organized globally. . . . Only then could there be a . . . free flow of capital, goods, currencies, people, values and ideas necessary to make international capitalism viable." McCormick.  America’s Half-Century.  32, 33, xiii-xiv.
 Chomsky 83-84.
  Goldberg, Harvey.  Class lecture on "Imperialism and the Middle East" in Contemporary Societies.  History.  University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974.
  Ibid.
  Yergin, Daniel.  The Prize:  The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power.  New York:  Simon & Schuster, 1991.  226.
  El-Najjar, Hassan, A.  The Gulf War:  Overreaction & Excessiveness.  Dalton, Georgia:  Amazone Press, 2001, 142.
  The four Aramco partners were Jersey (Exxon), Socony-Vacuum (Mobil), Standard of California Oil (Chevron), and Texaco.  To these four may be added Gulf, Royal Dutch/Shell, and British Petroleum to make up the famous "Sette Sorrelle," or Seven Sisters, who Enrico Mattei described as an exclusive "cartel" that exploited Middle East oil and denied the Italian oil conglomerate that he headed — the Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI) — admittance to its ranks.   See Yergin, 503, 501-502.
  Anglo-Persian Oil later became Anglo-Iranian Oil and was rechristened British Petroleum in 1954.  See Yergin 503, 413, 414, 415.
  Ibid., 295-297.
  In 1912, Calouste Gulbenkian, known as "Mr Five Percent," put together the Turkish Petroleum company, to which the German Deutsche Bank had transferred its claims for an oil concession in Mesopotamia (Iran), and he retained a 15% share of Turkish Petroleum through his preexisting 30% silent ownership of the Turkish National Bank.  The Deutsche Bank, which aimed to project German influence in the Middle East, and Royal Dutch/Shell each held a 25% share of the Turkish Petroleum Company.  Meanwhile, the Turkish National Bank happened to be a British controlled bank set up in Turkey to advance British economic and political interest in the Middle East.  See Yergin 185.
  Yergin 187, 583.
  Ibid., 187-188, 583.
  In June 1913, Churchill presented the British cabinet with a memorandum entitled "Oil Fuel Supply for His Majesty’s Navy" which "called for tong-term contracts to assure adequate supplies at secure prices.  A governing principle was ‘keeping alive independent competitive sources of supplies,’ thus frustrating ‘the formation of a universal oil monopoly’ and safeguarding ‘the Admiralty from becoming dependent on any single combination.’" (159)  On July 17, 1913, Churchill explained to Parliament the larger British national interest in oil in terms that should be familiar to U.S. policy makers today:  "‘If we cannot get oil,’ he warned, ‘we cannot get corn, we cannot get cotton and we cannot get a thousand and one commodities necessary for the preservation of the economic energies of Great Britain’"  So, he bluntly concluded, "the Admiralty should become ‘the owners or, at any rate, the controllers at the source’ of a substantial part of the oil it required." (160) Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty in 1914, didn’t want the British navy to be dependent on the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company because it was suspected of being pro-German.  See Yergin 159, 160.
  Yergin 161.
  Ibid. The two government directors were to have veto power over only major political matters and Admiralty fuel contracts.
  Goldberg, "Imperialism and the Middle East."
  Ibid.
  Ibid.
  Ibid.
  Yergin 401.
  Ibid.
  Ibid.
  Ibid.
  Ibid.
  Ibid.
  Ibid.
  Chomsky 190-191.
  Yergin 396-397.
  Ibid., 397.
  Ibid. 397.
  Ibid., 396-397.
  Ibid., 397.
  Ibid., 398-399.
  Ibid., 398.
  Ibid., 405.
  Ibid.
  By the 1950s and through the mid 1970s, the ownership and control of the production and distribution of Middle Eastern oil was largely monopolized by the large companies in the informal international oil cartel called the "Seven Sisters," i.e., Exxon, Royal Dutch/Shell, Texaco, Gulf, British Petroleum, Mobil, and Chevron.  While they have international investors as shareholders, five of the seven were predominately U.S. owned and based with a group of families headed by the Rockefellers dominant in three of them.  See Perlo, Victor, "The Economics of Oil Production," Occasional Paper, No. 14, AIMS, New York:  1974, 1.
  Newsweek, 21 February, 1994, 15.
  Dreyfuss, Robert. "Tinker, Banker, Neo Con, Spy:  Ahmed Chalabi’s long winding road from (and to?) Baghdad" The American Prospect, v. 13, n. 21, November 18, 2002, 5,   HYPERLINK http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V13/21/dreyfuss-r.html   www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V13/21/dreyfuss-r.html .
  Dreyfuss 6.
  Ibid.
  Klein, Naomi.  "Downsizing in Disguise,"  The Nation, 23 June 2003, 1, 2,   HYPERLINK http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?I=20030623&s=klein   www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030623&s=klein .
  Dreyfuss 1.
 Regarding the current era of corporate globalization and its primary beneficiary, few analysts have explained either the U.S. advantage gained from it or the U.S. military role in sustaining it better than one of its leading U.S. proponents.  He is U.S. foreign affairs expert Thomas L. Friedman, and he writes:  "Globalization means the spread of free-market capitalism to virtually every country in the world. . . .  [And] we are the biggest beneficiaries and drivers of globalization. . . . That is why sustainable globalization . . . requires . . . the active involvement of the United States. . . .  The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist — McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15.  And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technology is called the United States Army, Air force, Navy, and Marine Corps. . . . The global system cannot hold together without an activist . . .  American foreign and defense policy.  Without America on duty, there will be no America Online."  Friedman, Thomas, L.  "Manifesto for a Fast World:  The American burden."  New York Times (Magazine Section), 28 March 1999, 42, 43, 84, 96, 97.
  Klare, Michael, T.  Resource Wars:  The New Landscape of Global Conflict.  New York:  Henry Holt, 2001, ix-x.  The other side of this coin, however, is not to explain U.S. actions in the Middle East as a defensive reaction to a possible hostile take over of Middle East oil supplies by some U.S. enemy or rival — an extremely remote possibility in a era when U.S. military might seems to be at an unmatched zenith.  But it is to explain it as a continuing U.S. policy makers’ effort to maintain and expand U.S. control of Middle East energy resources.  Whatever Klare’s primary thesis, these excerpts from his book help to clarify that point:  "According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the Caspian Sea basin . . . harbors . . . about one-fifth of the world’s total proven reserves of petroleum. . . .  [And] the Caspian region houses . . . one-eight of the world’s gas reserves. . . . [Now], much of that supply [is] under the control of the new nations of the Caspian — all of which now seek to export their energy resources to the West.
 For Western oil companies, the opening of the Caspian basin to foreign investment has proved an extraordinary bonanza.  Virtually all of the giant energy firms have announced plans to team up with local enterprises in exploiting the Caspian’s oil and gas supplies.  For this reason the American government has focused enormous attention on the region and its economic development. . . . [T]he Commerce Department and other federal agencies have aided American companies in their efforts to establish join ventures with Central Asian energy firms . . . Beyond this, however, American officials see a strategic interest in the development of Caspian energy supplies . . . Washington hope to convert the Caspian basin into an alternative source of energy that can satisfy Western needs"  See Klare 2-3.
  The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, 6, 29, 30.  These few excerpts from the National Security Strategy may better illustrate the vast scope and even imperious nature of the document:  "We will disrupt and destroy terrorist organizations by . . . identifying and destroying the threat before it reaches our borders. . . . [W]e will not hesitate to act alone . . . to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively . . . and . . . compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities. . . . [O]ur best defense is a good offense. . . .
 We must be prepared to stop rogue states . . . before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends. . .  . To contend with . . . the many security challenges we face, the United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia . . . This broad portfolio of military capabilities must also . . . ensure U.S. access to distant theaters, and . . . assets in outer space. . . . Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States."  See Ibid., 6, 14, 29, 30.
  Among professional military people and strategists, the idea of obtaining global military dominance is simply the natural extension of the basic military objective of planning and striving for dominance on the battlefield and in war as a whole.  As for U.S. military strategy, the antecedents for the global military objective stated in the September 2002 National Security Strategy are found in the 1960s military doctrine of "flexible response," and, more recently, in the military doctrine of "full spectrum dominance" embodied in the Department of Defense's strategy documents entitled "Joint Vision 2010" and updated in "Joint Vision 2020." As detailed by these few excerpts from "Joint Vision 2020," "full spectrum dominance" is nothing short of the military strategy for maintaining and enlarging U.S. interests in the "open door" global, free market capitalist system.  In its words:  "The ultimate goal of our military force is to accomplish the objectives directed by the National Command Authorities.  For the joint force of the future [i.e., Air Force, Navy, Army and Marine Corps], this goal will be achieved through full spectrum dominance — the ability of US forces, operating unilaterally or in combination with multinational and interagency partners, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the full range of military operations. . . . Additionally, given the global nature of our interests and obligations, the United States must maintain its overseas presence forces and the ability to rapidly project power worldwide in order to achieve full spectrum dominance" because "the global interests and responsibilities of the United States will endure, and there is no indication that threats to those interests . . . will disappear."  See U.S. Department of Defense, General Henry H. Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Office of Primary Responsibility:  Director for Strategic Plans and Policy, J5; Strategy Division, "Joint Vision 2020," Washington, D.C.:  US Government Printing Office, June 2000, 6, 1.