How U.S. Rulers Decide: Where the Oil Is, Make Wars

U.S. imperialism needs to control militarily whatever it can of the world’s energy supplies. This hard fact underlies U.S. rulers’ selective response to uprisings and crackdowns across North Africa and the Middle East, and enables us to make sense of these responses.

Libya contains 42 billion barrels of oil and over 1.3 trillion cubic meters of gas. Testifying before the Senate on April 6, Richard Haass, president of the Rockefeller think-tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) representing the dominant wing of U.S. capitalists, said: “U.S. interests in Libya simply do not warrant such an investment [of ground war]…” But nevertheless, Libya’s oil and gas resources do make it worth killing Libyans from the air — invoking a phony “responsibility to protect” Libyan citizens — while saving U.S. resources for strategically more important areas.

Meanwhile, hypocrite-in-chief Obama stands by as Syrian ruler Assad slaughters protesters — even mourners — since that country possesses little oil and gas. U.S. imperialism’s top oil source, Saudi Arabia, holds a hundred times more crude than Syria. So, when demonstrations in neighboring Bahrain — where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is stationed — threatened to spill over the Saudi border, Obama, instead of “protection,” saw a “responsibility to suppress.” The invading Saudi troops that shot Bahraini protesters got a White House green light.

Main U.S. Bosses Favor All-out Gulf War and/or World War over Ground Strikes at Individual Foes

The Israel Lobby in the U.S. (ignoring Israeli massacres of workers in Palestine) howls at Obama’s “shameful U.S. inaction on Syria’s massacres.” (Washington Post editorial, 4/22): “It [Syria] is Iran’s closest ally; it supplies Iranian weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip for use against Israel.”

However, Exxon Mobil-JP Morgan Chase, the dominant wing of U.S. capitalists — whom Obama strives to serve — keeps its eyes on the Saudi grand prize. New York Times scribe and CFR member David Sanger explained: “The Europeans, and some of Mr. Obama’s political opponents at home, sense a lack of commitment. Inside the White House, the opposite argument is made — that after a bruising decade of misadventures, the United States is preserving American power for the moments when truly vital interests need to be protected.” (NY Times, 4/24)

In 1980, following Exxon’s ouster from oil-rich Iran, Democrat U.S. president Jimmy Carter declared access to Persian Gulf oil and gas as being a supreme U.S. “vital interest,” to be defended or regained “by military force.”

In his April 6 Senate testimony, CFR president Haass clarified the main wing’s focus on gearing up for conflict throughout the entire Gulf and with North Korea and China: “Far more important than Libya for U.S. interests in the region are Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and Iran. The United States also needs to reserve resources for other parts of the world (the Korean Peninsula comes to mind), for possible wars of necessity, for military modernization central to our [U.S. rulers’] position in the Pacific.” Even as they hold oil profits and control of supplies above all else, U.S. rulers’ power has limits.

The only thing holding Obama back from putting GI boots on Libyan soil, or attacking Syria, is not moral scruples, but his ruling-class masters’ need for larger wars. Haass named Syria only in the context of a general Gulf land invasion by U.S. forces.

Obama-McCain-Rockefeller
Imperialists ‘Protect’ Libyan Workers By Bombing Them

War criminal and major strategist Anthony Cordesman, who now toils for the Rockefeller-funded Center for Strategic and International Studies after decades at the Pentagon said: “France, Britain, the U.S. and other participating members of the [NATO] Coalition need to shift to the kind of bombing campaign that targets and hunts down Qaddafi’s military and security forces....Qaddafi, his extended family, and his key supporters need to be targeted for their attacks on Libyan civilians, even if they are colocated in civilian areas....This kind of operation cannot be ‘surgical’ — if ‘surgical’ now means minimizing bloodshed.” (CSIS website, 4/20)

Obama’s bosses intend to “protect” Libyan workers from Qaddafi by blowing them to bits. Cordesman wrote on the eve of a visit to Libyan rebels by John McCain, whom he advises. McCain’s trip had two related goals: boosting U.S. imperialist interventionism and discrediting isolationist GOP Tea Partiers, who obstruct the Rocekefeller-led rulers’ agenda.

Big Oil & Qaddafi Hedge Their Bets, Value Profits over Workers’ Lives

Qaddafi is still holding on despite the imperialists’ willingness to launch more intense air strikes — including U.S. predator drones. The Libyan dictator is hedging his bets, possibly hoping to make a deal with his enemies, with whom he’s been making deals for decades.

Exxon & Co.’s owners know that air raids (unless nuclear ones, which don’t seem worth it here) seldom turn the tide, as proven in Vietnam. So, with Joint Chiefs of Staff boss Mike Mullen talking of a stalemate in Libya, U.S. rulers, allied imperialists and Big Oil are also hedging their bets there. As Businessweek magazine reported weeks into the “allied” campaign (4/14), “Most foreign companies are not taking sides. That appears to be particularly true of the U.S. companies, among them Marathon Oil, ConocoPhillips and Hess.”

Oil Bosses Plan An October Meeting with Qaddafi

Exxon, British Shell and BP more brazenly remain number-one sponsors of Qaddafi’s National Oil Company’s scheduled October 2011 investor conference in Tripoli. And even as NATO bombs rain down on his compound, the equally-opportunist, profit-hungry Qaddafi entices Western firms: “Only 25% of Libya’s surface territory [has been] explored to date.” (oilandgaslibya.com)

Some see in the latest revolts a promise of liberation. Such potential may very well exist whenever masses risk their livelihoods and lives to mobilize against the rulers. But without a class-conscious, revolutionary outlook and a working-class army led by a working-class party to fight for it, more profit wars and exploitation are inevitable. The “Arab Spring” is a signal to keep rebuilding the international communist movement led by PLP.

All this means communists and our militant supporters must intensify the spread of our internationalist line, in every mass organization to which we belong — as is happening in shops and unions, among GI’s, in schools and colleges, community groups and churches. From Colombia to Palestine, Mexico to Haiti, Pakistan to El Salvador, the U.S. to Portugal, we must expose capitalism’s inherent exploitation and lead class struggle against it until communist-led revolutionary forces can bury capitalism and establish a society based on workers’ rule for workers’ needs.