Washington & Big Oil vs. the world
By Fred Goldstein
The Bush administration has run into a series of hard bumps
on its road to war. There is visibly mushrooming opposition to
the war at home and abroad, as well as the sudden escalation of
conflict between Washington and its imperialist rivals in Paris
and Berlin. Bush's drive for war against Iraq is truly becoming
a battle of Washington against the world.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of
Washington, San Fran cisco and other cities on Jan. 18. Sim ul
taneous demonstrations were carried out in dozens of cities on
all continents. The worldwide movement is mobilizing for
demonstrations on Feb. 15, which were initiated by the European
anti-war organizations.
Bush's poll numbers in the U.S. have dropped precipitately,
both on support for the war and on the economy. Meanwhile, the
Washington Post reported on Jan. 25 that "the Bush
administration has asked 53 countries to join the United States
in a military campaign against Iraq, but so far the 'coalition
of the willing,' in President Bush's phrase, consists of a
handful of countries and even fewer commitments of troops,
officials and diplomats said yesterday."
Bush's belligerent State of the Union speech was calculated
to overcome this worldwide mass opposition and the crisis with
the French and German governments. He combined threats to go it
alone with a new barrage of lies to justify the war.
Bush's job was facilitated by Hans Blix, head of the United
Nations inspections team, whose report handed Washington a gift
of war propaganda by making a blanket denunciation of Iraq's
attitude. Blix served the overlords in the White House and the
Pentagon by what a Jan. 26 BBC report described as the
"sandbagging of Iraq." But he covered himself by asking for
more time for inspections and saying, give peace a chance.
Reviving a dead horse
A clear indication of the Bush administration's desperation
to overcome mass resistance to the war and rope in reluctant
regimes around the world was Secretary of State Colin Powell's
charge, reiterated by Bush, that Iraq was linked to Al-Qaeda.
The fact that Powell was the first to publicly level this
charge, which he did at an international meeting in Davos,
Switzerland, was an ominous sign that the administration was
united for war.
Beginning right after Sept. 11, the right wing in and around
the Bush administration was clamoring for a declaration linking
Iraq to the World Trade Center disaster and claiming links to
Al-Qaeda. James Woolsey, former CIA director and a leader of
the "attack Iraq" forces outside of the administration, rushed
off to Europe to get the "proof." He went with the blessing of
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, but the mission was
undertaken without Powell's consent.
Woolsey came back with nothing but allegations that an Iraqi
intelligence agent had met with Al-Qaeda in Prague. This was
denied by the Czech government after an investigation. U.S.
intelligence could not verify it.
The claimed Al-Qaeda connection was the battle cry of the
go-it-alone, war-now grouping within the administration. Bush
himself would not sanction the claim and Powell held to the
position that there was no evidence. The ruling class generally
resisted such claims, knowing they were a lie and could not be
substantiated.
Now Washington, despite all its demonization of Saddam
Hussein and the Iraqi government, is more isolated than ever.
So it has finally played the Al-Qaeda card, and this time
Powell is fully on board. Lacking any evidence of a connection
to Sept. 11, Bush is attempting to tie Iraq to some future
attack similar to the one on the World Trade Center.
Oil slicks everywhere
This flimsy scare tactic will not deter the anti-war
movement one iota. If anything, such flagrant and crude lies
and patent war propaganda are bound to spur the movement on to
meet the new war danger. More and more clear evidence about the
true nature of this imperialist war of conquest is coming out
daily.
The slogan "No Blood for Oil," one of the most popular
slogans of the movement worldwide, expresses a large part of
the truth about the war drive.
The London Sunday Herald of Jan. 26 carried a lead story
saying that, "Tony Blair and George Bush have privately agreed
to a joint strategy that will delay any possible war against
Iraq for four weeks, during which time they will work
tirelessly to achieve three key objectives:
"Firstly, they seek to persuade France ... not to carry out
its threatened veto of a second UN resolution to allow the U.S.
to intervene in Iraq.
"The French, along with Russia and China, also permanent
members of the UN Security Council but not expected to vote,
have extensive oil rights in Iraq and want those guaranteed
before agreeing to any UN resolution."
In addition, Bush and Blair agreed in a "lengthy telephone
conversation" to "ensure that all military personnel and
hardware" are in place for a "likely attack at the start of
March." They also agreed to "utilize every possible moment to
win the hearts and minds of the American and British public to
persuade them that war is justified."
Above all, "the U.S. is also understood to be ready to
compromise its plans to monopolize the post-war oil industry in
Iraq using only U.S. oil firms. The U.S. gov ernment's promise
to hold Iraqi oilfields 'in trust' for the people of Iraq is
now looking like an international, U.S.-led promise to spread
the spoils between U.S., French, Chinese and Russian oil
companies."
This report sheds light on both the war aims of the U.S.
ruling class and the struggle that broke out with the French
government, in a bloc with the German imperialists, over U.S.
plans to go to war. According to the Wall Street Journal of
Jan. 17, oil industry experts say that Iraq, "with serious
investment," could be producing six million barrels of oil a
day within five years. By comparison, Saudi Arabia, the world's
biggest oil producer, had output of 8.03 million barrels a day
in December.
"The Bush administration," continues the Journal, "is eager
to secure Iraq's oil fields and rehabilitate them, industry
officials say. They say Mr. Cheney's staff hosted an
informational meeting with industry executives in October, with
Exxon Mobil Corp, ChevronTexaco Corp., ConocoPhillips and
Halliburton among the companies represented. Both the Bush
administration and the companies say the meeting never took
place.
"Since then, industry officials say, the Bush administration
has sought input, formally and informally, from executives and
industry experts on how best to overhaul Iraq's oil sector. An
industry expert said Tuesday that State Department officials
met with as many as two major oil companies and an industry
consultant as recently as last week."
Sharing some of the loot
The French oil giant TotalFinaElf has the promise of major
oil concessions in Iraq, including the Masjoun fields near the
Iranian border and Nahr Omar fields in the south. It has not
been able to exploit these concessions because of the
U.S.-imposed sanctions. Russian firms such as Lukoil have
billions in contracts also.
The U.S., despite its importation of Iraqi oil in the last
few years, has no oil concessions in Iraq because of hostile
relations. The irony of the present diplomatic/military
situation is that Washington, which has no concessions, is
demanding the French, the Russians and China vote for a U.S.
invasion which will leave the Pentagon, Wall Street and Big Oil
in charge of Iraq's oil fields, putting the French, the
Russians and the Chinese at the mercy of Washington. They are
being asked to participate in a war to take away or drastically
reduce their own holdings. Small wonder there is a last-minute
rebellion by the French imperialists.
As for the German imperialists, they are not allowed into
the Middle East, nor are the Japanese imperialists. Both ruling
classes were defeated in World War II by U.S. imperialism. And
although both are huge industrial economies with vast energy
needs, neither has any holdings in the region. To a large
extent, this disparity in spheres of influence was behind both
world wars and forms the basis for present and future
conflicts.
All the oil companies are straining at the bit for the war
and the takeover that they anticipate. The Deutsche Bank, in a
special 35-page report to its clients, recommended that they
buy ExxonMobil, despite its poor economic performance recently.
The report, cited in the London Daily Mirror of Jan. 26, stated
that "ExxonMobil's status as the largest U.S. oil company gives
it major weight with the U.S. government. The company may find
itself in pole position in changed-regime Iraq."
The Boston Globe revealed in a Jan. 26 report that "the Bush
administration has compiled a classified strategic plan to
protect Iraq's oil fields during war and then manage that oil
for months or years afterward.... The Pentagon," continues the
Globe, "which has many more planners working on the oil
question than other parts of the government, will take over the
role of protecting the oil facilities.... U.S. special forces
have been on the ground inside Iraq since September, monitoring
the oil fields and rigs.... U.S. spy planes also have continued
surveillance of the oil fields in recent months."
The sudden bloc between the French and the Germans against
Washington put Colin Powell, the advocate of coalition and
diplomacy, on the spot. In the heat of this inter-imperialist
struggle he shifted sharply to the right.
He will struggle to build a united coalition for
Washington's unprovoked war of conquest in Iraq, and for its
drive to take over the Middle East. And he may well succeed, by
a combination of threats and promises to share the loot. But he
has gone over to the hawks' position of go-it-alone if
necessary. Thus he will be bringing a united position demanding
adventurous aggression to the UN Security Council on Feb.
5.
But the struggle with the Germans and the French is not
strictly over oil. These regimes, and the government of Tony
Blair as well, and all the governments of the world for that
matter, are caught between the imperious demands of Washington
and the widening and deepening resistance to the war among the
masses of people of the world.
Protests keep growing
Three quarters of the people in France are opposed to the
war. Eighty percent of the people in Germany are opposed.
Almost the entire Turkish population is opposed to the war, but
the regime is being forced to take U.S. troops. The Bush
administration's war drive is intruding on the agenda of the
entire world, making every government subject to the hostility
and distrust of its own population.
In particular, the European regimes have to face the coming
Feb. 15 mobilizations, which promise to be massive. They will
shake the political foundation of any regime that goes along
with Washington's military plans.
And above all, the opposition in the U.S. is growing by
leaps and bounds. Indeed, the French and German imperialists
were well aware of the massive outpouring on Jan. 18 in
Washington and San Francisco, and undoubtedly were encouraged
in their challenge to Washington. It is the mobilization of the
anti-war struggle on a broader and broader scale, moving toward
resistance, that has helped cause a split in the imperialist
camp and also has the potential to push back sections of the
ruling class here at home.
The great mobilizations of Oct. 26 and Jan. 18 must serve as
the basis for even greater mobilizing in thoward
resistance, that has helped cause a split in the imperialist
camp and also has the potential to push back sections of the
ruling class here at home.
The great mobilizations of Oct. 26 and Jan. 18 must serve as
the basis for even greater mobilizing in the coming struggle to
stop the war.
Reprinted from the Feb. 6, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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