Re: Harvey on Iraq (as filtered through George Monbiot)

--- Trichur Ganesh <tganesh@stlawu.edu> wrote:
<<Hey Khaldoun, do you know where Harvey wrote or
published this piece?>>

This is not Harvey's essay.  It is by George Monbiot
using Harvey to explain the US war on Iraq.  The essay
comes from http://www.monbiot.com/

I found the essay useful to a point, but I'm in one of
those points in my life where explaining every issue
with terms like "over-accumulation of capital" limited
in its explanatory power.  What I found useful in this
essay is the second half where Monbiot discusses
military keynesianism and geostrategic interests over
the control of oil.  As for the former part of the
essay, the US could have easily applied a policy like
the one it used on Egypt by forcing Sadat and Mubarak
to adopt the policy of Infitah ("opening" the market),
a policy the World Bank and IMF would welcome and
support. 

Hence, the US could have dealt with its economic
expansionary needs without resorting to war and regime
change.  The fact that it has chosen this path should
be enough to force us to look elsewhere for
explanation; and I have a feeling that part of the
explanation has to do with the feeling of insecurity
the US has over the future of Saudi Arabia and Opec. 
Any loss of influence over this region means a loss of
influence elsewhere, especially EU and East Asia.
Indeed, as Aburish ("The Rise, corruption and the
Coming Fall of the House of Saud") and many others
have warned, the hold on power of the Saudi regime is
in jeopordy of complete meltdown, and I'm sure many in
the US are quite aware of this.  The fact that the US
has poured in over two hundred thousand troops into
the Gulf is their response to this crisis.  Hence, the
war on Iraq is not the result of the overaccumulation
of capital in search of new markets.  Rather, the US
war on Iraq is intended as a prepatory stage to insure
the continuing influence of the US over the Gulf
region and elsewhere.

Khaldoun

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