Wallerstein's long run view: the short-run short-changed?

NOTE:  A post I sent earlier today, END the MODERATION, has already
appeared before the one I sent yesterday (below)  I sent this post to
WSN on Thu 01/23/2003 1:46 PM, and I'm sending it again now, 1-24-03
3:46 PM.  This corroborates my and other complaints about moderating the
list.
Elson

In his state of the Union address, Bush will probably announce that the
US will have to make war on Iraq.  Why?  

Wallerstein, in his most recent post, points out that "With the collapse
of the Soviet Union, [the US] has lost the major political argument it
had to persuade western Europe and Japan to follow all its political
initiatives."  Hence, the primary reason for the war, he argues, is to
restore "U.S. prestige and power in the world-system" and "to intimidate
the allies of the United States, so that they stop their carping, their
criticisms, and fall back into line, meekly as the schoolchildren they
are considered to be by the hawks."

I think this is convincing.  It certainly is a long-run view of short
durée developments.  But I'm skeptical that the war is primarily to get
allies to fall back in line.  Isn't it obvious to everyone, including
the hawks, that their unilateralism is having just the opposite result?
Does Powell really believe it when he claims that he's going to get the
allies support no matter what US intelligence provides?  

Wallerstein excludes key short-run incentives for the war that seem more
concrete and convincing.  Some argue that among the middle-run goals, as
opposed to the short or long run goals for the war, is an effort to
enhance US power in the Middle East.  This is no doubt part of the
hawk's reasoning, but many, including some conservatives, believe that
this action will do much to undermine US power in the Middle East,
immediately and permanently.

It has become cliché, but I think valid, to stress the geopolitics of
oil.  I've forwarded some of the following previously, but it seems ever
more relevant.  Bear in mind the consistency of present US policy in
these statements with that of the 1980s (indeed with that of Britain and
France between 1900-1920) -- when the US put US flags on Kuwaiti tankers
and engaged in a secret war against Iran to safeguard the oil and
ostensibly to prevent an Iranian (not Iraqi) invasion of Kuwait.  It was
a war in which the US sunk half of Iran's navy overnight in the largest
naval operation since world-war II (according to Nightline).  Most of
that bloody war was fought by Iraqis after the US rapidly built up
Hussein's military and covertly sold massive chemical and biological
materials for weapons and served as Iraq's forward command to help them
use mustard gas to kill tens of thousands of Iranians.  See
http://www.svsu.edu/~boles/index/usiraqgas.htm  

(Another article sums it up this way "More broadly, the U.S. has a long
history in which Saddam, though just as monstrous as he is today, was
coddled as our monster. In the 1980's we provided his army with
satellite intelligence so that it could use chemical weapons against
Iranian soldiers. When Saddam used nerve gas and mustard gas against
Kurds in 1988, the Reagan administration initially tried to blame Iran.
We shipped seven strains of anthrax to Iraq between 1978 and 1988.")

With that in mind, here are some facts about the short-run goals -- oil
profits -- behind the war:

According to Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff, at ABC, "Dick
Cheney's Halliburton Co. had interests in Iraqi oil production after the
(Gulf ) war. Would American oil companies get favorable treatment from
their former colleagues who now run the White House?" 

Indeed, in a New York Times article, "Revolving-Door Monsters,"
(10-11-02) reported that "when Mr. Cheney was running Halliburton, the
oil services firm, it sold more equipment to Iraq than any other company
did. As first reported by The Financial Times on Nov. 3, 2000,
Halliburton subsidiaries submitted $23.8 million worth of contracts with
Iraq to the United Nations in 1998 and 1999 for approval by its
sanctions committee."  

As reported in the Washington Post (9-15-02): "'It's pretty
straightforward,' said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has
been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. 'France
and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told
that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government
[one that profits us and not them], we'll do the best we can to ensure
that the new government and American companies work closely with them'
[so they get a share of the booty]  But he added: 'If they throw in
their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible
to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them.'"

"There's no real upside for American oil companies to take a very
aggressive stance at this stage. There'll be plenty of time in the
future," said James Lucier, an oil analyst with Prudential Securities.

But with the end of sanctions that likely would come with Hussein's
ouster, companies such as ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco [and Halliburton
Oil] would almost assuredly play a role, industry officials said.
"There's not an oil company out there that wouldn't be interested in
Iraq," one analyst said.

See the full article at
http://www.svsu.edu/~boles/111/articles/foroil.htm

Elson Boles
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Sociology
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center
Saginaw MI, 48710