Modern American Imperialism

President Bush, British Prime Minister Blair, and the American national news media have portrayed the government of Iraq as a threat to their national security. Factually the terrorist attacks against the United States have not been linked to Iraq. Facts aside, the attacks instead have provided the Bush-Blair regime with an opportunity they cannot ignore. Most people believe Bush and Blair are making a grab for Iraqi oil. Controlling Iraq’s vast oil reserves will not only assure the American and British governments a nonstop flow of abundant cheap oil to not only pay for the war and force down the price per barrel of oil, but they can also control the flow oil to the rest of the world. This picture of Bush and Blair’s ulterior motives for invading Iraq, however logical, is incomplete. There is also a geopolitical and geostrategic dimension for invading and more importantly occupying Iraq.

According to a document allegedly circulating in Republican circles, “Desert Storm was about restoring the status quo ante. The 2003 war with Iraq will be about redefining the status quo in the region. Geopolitically, it will leave countries like Syria and Saudi Arabia completely surrounded by U.S. military forces and Iran partially surrounded....The conquest of Iraq will...represent the introduction of a new imperial power to the middle east and a redefinition of regional geopolitics based on that power....Every country bordering Iraq will find not the weakest formations of the Iraqi army along their frontiers, but U.S. and British troops (which) will be able to reach into any country in the region with covert forces...and...overt interventions as well. The United States will move from being an outside power influencing event through coalitions, to a regional power that is able to operate effectively on its own. Most significantly, countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran will be living in a new and quite unpleasant world....”

A serious consequence of the American-British imposed no fly zone in northern Iraq is the quiet establishment of a de facto Kurdish state bordering south eastern Turkey. In an AP story filed by Louis Meixler reported in the Turkish Times (9/1/2002), Northern Iraq, according to Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, was part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. “It was an area which had been forcibly separated. Northern Iraq is under our safekeeping.” Six weeks later a report from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (10/14/2002) stated, “Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu says Turkey does not want a war. But, he said, if the United States intervenes in Iraq, Turkey may be forced to protect its interests. Turkey might well use military force to block formation of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq.” According to the alleged Republican document, Bush and Blair have bought Turkey’s cooperation in the war against Iraq by promising to hand over the oil fields around Mosul and Kirkuk. The deal allows Turkey to fatten up on oil and at the same time prevent an independent Kurdish state.

There is no question that Bush and Blair’s public excuses for attacking Iraq are simply nonsense. Additionally the American national news media has the resources to dredge up the truth but instead parrots the party line devolving from the fourth estate to the fourth branch of government. There is also no question that the American-British onslaught will kill hundreds of thousand of innocent Iraqis now and untold thousand of other peoples later. This may be a glimpse of the present and future of modern American imperialism.

February 2003