Hossein-Zadeh

The Political Economy of US Militarism, 2006

Pecking Order

Despite the fact that oil companies nowadays view war and political turmoil in the Middle East as detrimental to their long-term interests and, therefore, do not support policies that are conducive to war and militarism, and despite the fact that war is no longer the way to gain access to cheap oil, the widespread perception that every U.S. military engagement in the region, including the current invasion of Iraq, is prompted by oil considerations continues. The question is why?..

[T]he major reason for the persistence of this pervasive perception seems to stem from certain deliberate efforts that are designed to perpetuate the myth in order to camouflage some real economic and geopolitical special interests that drive the U.S. military adventures in the Middle East. There is evidence that both the military-industrial complex and militant Zionist proponents of 'greater Israel' disingenuously use oil as a U.S. 'national interest issue' in order to disguise their own nefarious special interests and objectives: justification of continued expansion of military spending, extension of sales markets for the products of war and war-related industries, and recasting the geopolitical map of the Middle East according to the designs of hard-line Zionism. Evidence indicates that for every dollar’s worth of oil imported from the Persian Gulf region the Pentagon takes $5 out of the federal budget to 'secure' the flow of that oil! This is a clear indication that the claim that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is due to oil consideration is a fraud..

A widely shared.. view, especially outside of the United States, attributes the recent rise of U.S. militarism, especially the invasion of Iraq, to the geopolitical imperatives of Israel and the concomitant influence of the Zionist lobby. Some of the proponents of this view go so far as to argue that the U.S. foreign and/or military policies in the Middle East are made by leading forces or figures of militant Zionism.. Without denying the contributory roles of these factors, [my work] points to a more crucial force behind the drive to war and militarism: the powerful beneficiaries of military expansion and war dividends, or the military-industrial complex and related influential interests that are vested in the business of war and military expansion...

It is no secret that the major force behind the [1996] Iran-Libya Sanction Act was the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main Political Economy of U.S. Militarism Zionist lobby in Washington. The success of AIPAC in passing ILSA through both the Congress and the White House over the opposition of the major U.S. oil companies is testament to the fact that, in the context of U.S. policy in the Middle East, even the influence of the oil industry pales vis-à-vis the influence of the Zionist lobby..

Official explanations such as weapons of mass destruction, Saddam’s threat to the United States, or his connection to Al-Qaida, can now easily be dispensed with as flimsy, harebrained pretexts for the invasion of Iraq. Critics have, instead, pointed to a number of other factors behind the drive to war. Those factors are divided into two categories in this chapter: secondary or minor factors and primary or major ones. Included among secondary reasons for the war are the role of domestic politics, the influence of the so-called neoconservative ideologues, and the role of oil. Primary or major factors include the military-industrial complex and the militant Zionist proponents of “greater Israel.” I will call the unofficial, unspoken, de facto alliance between these two major forces, precipitated by a convergence of their respective interests on war and political convulsion in the Middle East, the military-industrial-Likud alliance...

Frightened by the specter of peace and/or peace dividends [after the fall of the Berlin Wall], beneficiaries of military spending frantically sought to invent and substitute 'new threats' for the 'communist threat' of the Cold War era, thereby preempting the realization of peace dividends.

In pursuit of this goal, beneficiaries of war and militarism found a strong, well-established network of politically savvy allies: radical Zionist proponents of 'greater Israel.' Because the interests of these two powerful groups converged over fomenting war and political convulsion in the Middle East, an ominously potent alliance was forged between them— ominous, because the mighty U.S. war machine was now supplemented by the almost unrivaled public relations capabilities of the hard-line pro-Israel lobby in the United States. The alliance is unofficial and de facto; it is subtly forged through an elaborate network of powerful militaristic think tanks..

The Dog

U.S. policy makers in the Middle East would go along with the demands of the radical Zionist lobby only if such demands also tend to serve the special interests that those policy makers represent or serve — not necessarily the interests of the American people, or collective U.S. 'national interests' in general. The fact that, as pointed out earlier, U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War era was less accommodating to the territorial desires of militant Zionism than in the post–Cold War period is an indication of this point. Another corroborating indication of the point is that as the military-industrial complex has been gaining more and more influence over U.S. foreign policy, that policy has, accordingly, been more and more geared to the wishes of hard-line Zionism because, as has been frequently pointed out in this chapter, the interests of the U.S. military establishment converge with those of militant Zionism over war and political convulsion in the Middle East..

It does not follow.. as some critics argue, the U.S.–Israeli relationship represents a case of 'tail wagging the dog,' that is, the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is shaped by the Israeli/Zionist leaders. Nor do I subscribe to the hoary anti-Semitic canards that are used to put forth a specious case for Jews trying to run the world. While, no doubt, the powerful Jewish lobby exerts considerable influence over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the efficacy and the extent of that influence depend, ultimately, on the real economic and geopolitical interests of U.S. foreign policy makers. In other words, U.S. policy makers in the Middle East would go along with the demands of the radical Zionist lobby only if such demands also tend to serve the special interests that those policy makers represent or serve—not necessarily the interests of the American people, or collective U.S. 'national interests' in general. The fact that, as pointed out earlier, U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War era was less accommodating to the territorial desires of militant Zionism than in the post–Cold War period is an indication of this point. Another corroborating indication of the point is that as the military-industrial complex has been gaining more and more influence over U.S. foreign policy, that policy has, accordingly, been more and more geared to the wishes of hard-line Zionism because, as has been frequently pointed out in this chapter, the interests of the U.S. military establishment converge with those of militant Zionism over war and political convulsion in the Middle East..