‘The U.S. is trying to control the oil of the Middle East’

By Wang Wenwen

The U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, which began on Feb. 28, 2006, have sent shockwaves around the globe. The operations and ongoing hostilities have fueled fears of a wider war and caused further damage to the international order. In her I-Talk show, Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen talked to Jeffrey Sachs, a renowned U.S. scholar and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and Sara Flounders, a contributing editor to Workers World and activist for over 50 years, to unpack the deeper geopolitical implications of the U.S.-Israel strikes.

Global Times: How do the U.S. actions contradict what it claims as “rules-based” order? 

Jeffrey Sachs: We have no normal Constitutional order in the U.S. Under the U.S. Constitution, it is Congress that has the power to declare war. But we have all of these decisions coming from the president and presumably the CIA behind him. This is not in any way a legally based government, and it is a very dangerous one. It is led by an extremely militaristic ideology. The U.S. has displayed only contempt for the U.N. Charter. This is, again, very dangerous. The U.S. has abandoned the U.N. system. 

Sara Flounders: This was an absolutely criminal attack, planned in advance, at a time when every form of negotiation was underway. It is against the rules of international law, U.S. law and even diplomatic protocols. This is total lawlessness. The rules-based order meant the U.S. made the rules and everyone followed or was ordered to follow. But now, there are no rules whatsoever. It’s total lawlessness and unpredictability, creating provocations where there was no need.

GT: The attacks on Iran reflect a broader attempt by the U.S. to maintain strategic control and hegemony over the Middle East, particularly its oil resources. Do you think this goal can be achieved? 

Sachs: This is the goal. The U.S. is trying to control the oil of the Americas, and that’s why it invaded Venezuela. And it is trying to control the oil of the Middle East.

I don’t think that the U.S. has the means to defeat Iran. I would expect that Iran will be backed by countries in different parts of the world as it fights this war. But one of the major issues will come in the next few weeks. Iran has powerful missiles. The U.S. has missile defenses, but they are limited in number. So there’s a big debate about whether the missiles or the missile defenses will last longer. This is one of the military questions that’s at stake.

The U.S. is trying to take over the Middle East and put Israel in charge of the Middle East. In the short term, it could be feasible, but I think it’s very unlikely [in the long term]. It seems that what is more likely is violence, war, chaos and instability. This is mostly what happens when the U.S. and Israel go to war, whether it’s in Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran or Yemen. They don’t win, but they do create a tremendous amount of suffering and chaos.

Flounders: I really think this is a desperate effort of the U.S. to reverse by military means what they can no longer accomplish with their economic productivity. The U.S. is in a position of complete decline, and its leaders understand this, and they are trying with all-out war to reverse it. This cannot be accomplished. Sanctions, war or tariffs will not return its position in the world today, but it does show the U.S. desperation, and it will not esucceed. What the U.S. has accomplished is to inflame the people of the whole region who are striking back with what they have.

GT: The strikes on Iran have led to widespread speculation about the possibility of World War III. What do you think could be the trigger for the conflict to escalate into a broader war?

Sachs: We already have a kind of world war, because there’s war in the Americas, there’s war in the Middle East, there’s a European and U.S. war with Russia in Ukraine, there’s a war in Asia between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is low-level, but it’s very serious and risky. The U.S. is a rogue state that does not engage in diplomacy. It tries to kill the counterparts even during the negotiations. In this sense, it’s an extremely dangerous situation.

Flounders: It is already quite a broad war involving about 12 to 15 countries in the immediate region. It could definitely go wider, because Israel and the U.S. feel they can’t afford to lose. So it’s a very dangerous moment. 

GT: Some Western governments signaled support, directly or indirectly, for the joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, demonstrating that “the fist of my ally is the fist of justice.” In your view, is the world order rules-based or alliance-based?

Sachs: I have to admit the European states are simply vassals of the U.S. Whatever the U.S. does, Europe almost says the same thing at the U.N. Security Council. So this is not exactly a rules-based system. This is a bit of a travesty.

The world order is alliance-based, because the U.S. has abandoned any attempt at establishing rules. Now, what has happened is actually rather straightforward. If the U.S. has military bases in a country, that country behaves like a vassal state of the U.S. So this is a real issue, a very serious one. The CIA operates there, the military operates there. [Countries] are afraid of being overthrown or destabilized by the U.S.

Flounders: The world today is U.S.-terror based. [The U.S.] wants to create an air of complete unpredictability so that every country must bow down and fear the U.S. Throughout the whole [West Asian] region, it is trying to reconquer and recolonize the globe. Will that succeed? I don’t think there’s any chance of that in this day and age, but that’s what it is attempting to do — to recolonize the world completely under its domination.

GT: What political, economic or diplomatic means can peace-loving countries use to effectively counter the unilateral military actions of the U.S. and create conditions for the peaceful resolution of conflicts?

Sachs: I hope that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS)] will hold emergency meetings together to emphasize the unity of these large entities. That’s very important — to avoid being pulled apart by the U.S. forces. I would like to see cooperation between China and India, for example, to say to the U.S. and the world that they are defending peace and multilateralism and are not allowing themselves to be undermined by U.S. actions.

The U.S. cannot go it alone. Its strategy is divide and conquer. It aims at individual places, and it tries to bully them. This is how empires behave, and the U.S. is an empire that operates on the old principle of divide and conquer. If the rest of the world says, “No, we are united in principle, and we’re not going to be divided,” then it’s possible that the bully will be pushed back.

Flounders: In West Asia, there is a real understanding that it will take resistance at every level within the entire population and at enormous cost, but they can no longer accept the old ways. And certainly, you can see this in Palestine today. 

We will see uprisings and rebellions in this region against the entire order. The U.S. has lit the fuse. This is a war on all the formerly colonized countries that will not accept this racist arrogance, this economic and political dominance and this enforced underdevelopment. They have every right to healthy, fulfilling lives for the whole population. This is what the struggle is about on a global scale.

Wenwen also posted the video on several Facebook and other sites. 

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