Guaranteeing itself safe oil supplies

After months of difficult negotiations, the US and Iraq seem to have finally agreed on a security agreement that would legalise and legitimise the presence of US forces in Iraq. If the Iraqi parliament approves the agreement within the next few days, the US would have realised a six-decade old objective - the establishment of a permanent military presence near the world's largest oil reserve.

It is an established fact that oil was the main factor that attracted the US to the Middle East in the early years of the twentieth century. Since the late 1940s US officials have been overwhelmingly preoccupied with the possibility that hostile forces may gain too much wealth and power through controlling the dominant share of the world's oil. It is believed that securing the oil fields of the Gulf region was the main factor that lit the spark of the Cold War and prompted the US-Soviet rivalry.

In the early 1950s, the US went as far as to contemplate destroying the oil fields in the event of a Soviet incursion. As one declassified US government document showed, the US coordinated with the British government to blow up the oil fields in Iran and the Arabian Peninsula in the event of a Soviet invasion.

To this end, President Harry Truman approved a plan to store explosives near the oil fields. The plan was outlined in a National Security Council directive known as NSC 26/2. The US considered even deploying radiological weapons to destroy the oil fields before the Soviets could seize them. This option was rejected by the CIA on the grounds that radiological means would also deny the US access to oil fields.

The Eisenhower administration, which succeeded Truman's, opted instead for a preventive policy widely known as the Containment Doctrine. It thought that whereas Nato could contain the Soviet Union in Europe and South East Asia Pact could play the same role in Asia, the only region left open to Soviet penetration was the Middle East.

Here, a vacuum was on the shape as Britain's position was deteriorating quickly. Washington believed that the best way to contain the "red menace" in this region was by establishing a green belt that stretch from Pakistan in the East to Egypt in the West. But, because Eisenhower could not win the support of Arab nationalists in Egypt and Syria, his doctrine was unsuccessful. Moscow managed to penetrate into the Middle East and establish strong ties with several Arab countries. The US response was the Nixon Doctrine.

Due to increasing domestic opposition to US military involvement in Vietnam, the Nixon Doctrine was devised in 1969 to limit US direct intervention abroad. The US supported regional allies to assume the role of defending US interests around the world. In the Middle East, the doctrine led to the emergence of proxy states - Iran and Israel.

Iran's role as a regional policeman in the Gulf was contemplated when the British announced their intention to depart in the early 1970s. Israel, on the other hand, was considered a strategic asset as a result of its 1967 victory over the pro-Soviet Arab countries.

Nixon Doctrine

In 1979, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of the Shah regime in Iran, the Nixon Doctrine, which determined US Middle Eastern decade-long policy, came to an unpleasant end. In response to these strategic setbacks, the US established a Rapid Deployment Task Force intended to intervene at short notice in the event of further Soviet advancement toward the Gulf.

In addition, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor in the Carter administration, devised a strategy to establish an Islamic alliance against the Soviet invasion. His efforts paid dividends - the Soviet Union was defeated and ultimately collapsed.

The end of the Cold War did not change US interests but changed the threat to them. In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. Washington led an international coalition to prevent Saddam Hussain from combining too much wealth and power. And for a decade, Washington tried to keep the Iranian and Iraqi threats at bay through the Dual Containment policy.

However, by the end of the 1990s Iraq was moving slowly, but steadily, toward breaking the UN embargo. The US response was mild as Clinton was struggling for his own survival over domestic scandals. The incoming Bush administration viewed Iraq's policies as extremely destabilising for US interests in the Gulf.

Since it came to power the Republican administration was single-mindedly preoccupied with the question of oil supplies. Hence, immediately after taking office, Vice-President, Dick Cheney, set up a committee to examine US energy demands for the next 20 years. The committee concluded that US dependency on external oil supplies will increase from 50% at present to 70% in the year 2020 and that most of these needs will come from the Middle East.

For uninterrupted and safe oil supplies from the Gulf, the committee recommended, the US must establish a permanent military presence in the region. The US-Iraq security agreement would indeed guarantee that.

Dr Marwan Kabalan is a lecturer in media and international relations, Faculty of Political Science and Media, Damascus University, Syria.