The NEXT wars for oil

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Wednesday August 10, 2005 19:04 by Rennie Gaviscon

another occasional digest of reality v spin

Don't be fooled by the headlines and the fancy graphics. The US is not worried about Iran's nuclear weapons programme. They would have taken more serious steps by now if they were. It's part of the War for Oil series. The main oil countries, or even pipeline countries will be included - Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria. And there's plenty of spin on the news to prepare public opinion for it.

First, a quick look back at the Iranian elections.
Reforming moderates had been popular in Iran, despite the narrowminded Ayotollah and supreme council. But of course, the moderates lost ground during the sabre-rattling from Washington.
When the hardliner Ahmadinejad got in, helped by the hostile attitude of the US towards Iran, immediately news stories appeared stating that suddenly it had come to the attention of the US intelligence community that the new Iranian president had been a hostage taker in the 1980s. The story was completely false, and has not been repeated, but it was not really retracted either.


Yesterday, Rumseld made an announcement that Iranian weapons were discovered in Iraq. He interrupted a reporter who was asking for details and said that
the weapons were "clearly, unambiguously from Iran" - in otherwords, "I say so. Don't question it"

The same Rumsfeld, standing next to Gen Myers made no reference to another possible origin of Iranian weapons - the Mujahadeen el Khalq (MeK) an Iranian terrorist group.

the MeK was set up by Saddam's Ba'ath party (helped by the CIA) to operate inside Iran during the Iran -Iraq war, and help destabilise the government there.

During the Clinton administration, the MeK was added to the US State Dept's list of terrorist organisations.

So, what with their being a War on Terror, and all terrorists being equally bad. How many MeK members are in Abu Ghraid or Guantanamo? Probably not that many, because the US seems happy to have them in Iraq, so long as they don't get mentioned by the media.
Less than two months ago MeK members held a conference in Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, which is guarded by US tanks.

Instead of being thrown in Abu Ghraib, 3,000 Mek fighters are in Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad, after they 'handed over' their weapons, including tanks, anti aircraft weapons and rocket launchers.
It seems a far cry from orange jump suits in Cuba, and is even complete with separate quarters for the officers.

So, why would the US not send these terrorists to "Gitmo"?

Could it be because they're an Iranian group hostile to the Iranian government?

The MeK have yet to be mentioned in western news, despite recent bomb attacks inside Iran.
In the pro-western website Iranfocus, the MeK are referred to as the PMOI (People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran) the same website also repeats the claim of hostage taking by the Iranian president.

Given that the US is bogged down in Iraq, they don't have the spare troops to attack Iran, but, a few shadowy MeK actions helped by the CIA can help soften up Iran.

Also on the cards is an Israeli airstrike on Iran. Ariel Sharon has already indicated his approval of the idea, which would have to be somewhat different to the bombing of the Osirak reactor in Iraq by the Israelis in 1981.
The Iranian facilities are partially built underground, so the Israelis will use to use 'bunker busting bombs".

Also absent from western media discussion is the fact that, while suspicious, Iran's nuclear program is not illegal, and the deal they had with the IAEA was entirely voluntary.
With world oil supplies running out, Iran could argue that developing nuclear power is necessary for energy security, although this doesn't really hold water.

But the US doesn't fear that Iran would attack the US with a nuclear weapon. Isfahan would already have been bombed if that was the case. But it is useful to whip up hysteria about WMD, combined with lots of media stories about how evil the Iranian regime is.

Ironically, it is the attitude's taken by the Bush administration that is most likely to prompt Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
Having noted that the US knew Saddam didn't have WMD, but they believe that North Korea does have them, the Iranians may see a nuclear weapon as a guarantee that the US will not attack them and nor will Israel, which also has nuclear weapons but has not officially declared them (and in fact continues to persecute Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli scientist who exposed the Israeli nuclear weapons program at Dimona, even after he finished his 18 year prison sentence for blowing the whistle)

Also hot on the, Saudi Arabia, a corrupt oil rich regime allied to the US. The Saud family faces serious opposition from inside and outside their borders, (they're dictators too, but they're long time business partners of the Bush dynasty. George Bush Sr, Cheney and Powell went to the recent funeral of King Fahd)

But, with Saudi Arabia's oil running out, and growing fears of open revolt against the 'royal' family, the US will be thinking about who to replace them with (obviously not letting the Saudi citizens chose a government that might not be so useful to Washington)

There are already large deployments of US forces inside Saudi Arabia, as well as mercenaries hired through companies such as Vinnell (linked to Bush Sr, and his CIA /Carlyle Group buddies)
If they decided that the Saud family has run out of time, there might well be a US sponsored coup to put a new puppet regime in place.

As for Syria, they're still on Washington's hit list. There's been little mention of Syria since it pulled out of Lebanon following the unusual events surrounding the car bomb assassination of Rafik Hariri and car bomb attempts on pro-syrian Lebanese Ministers.
But, if you watched CNN during in 2004, you would have seen John Bolton, (now Bush's man at the UN) addressing US Senators arguing for sanctions on Syria, and claiming that the Syrians have WMD.

Stategically, Syria would be a great place put a pipeline to take oil to the Mediterranean Sea, and a new regime there would be appreciated by the Israeli government, who took the Golan Heights from Syria by force.

So, as the world's largest consumer of oil, and only superpower, the US will want to continue it's attack on oil rich countries in order to make sure that the scramble for the dwindling supplies of black gold turns out in their favour. This may result in the deaths of another 100,000 people or more, but as always, it will be "in the national interest"