September 4--Secretary General of the United Nations Javier Perez de Cuellar went way beyond the scope of his authority when he met with the foreign minister of Iraq and then, instead of directly reporting back to the UN Security Council, publicly stated that the Iraqi government stood firm on its unwillingness to withdraw from Kuwait, in effect blaming the Iraqi government for the deepening of the crisis. The whole course of his press conference put the Iraqi government in a negative light.
As the administrative officer for the UN, he is authorized to engage in dialogue with member states, to report back on his deliberations to the UN Security Council, and make suggestions on that basis. However, his public statements put the onus on Iraq and at the same time shift the crisis away from the UN and towards a solution of the problem at the so-called "superpowers" meeting to be held this coming weekend between the U.S. and the USSR in Helsinki.
Bush and Gorbachev
The Helsinki meeting was initiated in great haste by Bush himself, in order to fortify the position of U.S. imperialism by getting the cooperation of the Gorbachev administration. It comes at a time when the latter has just made an economic agreement with the pro-imperialist, pro-capitalist Yeltsin grouping which marks a giant step toward the restoration of capitalism in the USSR.
Whether it can be implemented depends solely on whether the masses of workers, peasants and progressive intelligentsia realize the enormity of this development. In the meantime, the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie in the USSR is doing everything in its power to sabotage the socialist economy and discredit socialist achievements in general.
During the darkest days of the Second World War, when both Moscow and Leningrad were under siege by the Nazis, bread was made available to the people through rationing. There was never a real bread crisis in the Soviet Union, despite the brutal destruction wreaked by the Nazis.
But today the Western media reports there is no bread in Moscow. How can this be? It is an artificial shortage, deliberately created by bourgeois elements for the purposes of abolishing socialist planning, widening the capitalist market, and opening the doors wide to the imperialist monopolies.
The Bush administration sees this as a good time to take advantage of the USSR's internal crisis in order to get cooperation from Gorbachev in the military adventure of U.S. imperialism against the entire Arabian peninsula.
U.S. strike force deployed
Even before Bush arrives in Helsinki, the U.S. press is acknowledging that U.S. military aircraft have secretly been deployed in untold numbers throughout the entire Gulf area, including Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
As we have stressed in these pages over the last weeks, the Security Council passed resolutions on Aug. 2, 6 and 9 imposing an embargo against Iraq and authorizing the boarding, inspection and verification of vessels suspected of carrying goods destined for Iraq prohibited by the embargo. The U.S. and other imperialist powers have interpreted this as authorization for a naval blockade.
The Security Council arrived at these crucial decisions during six long days and nights of talks in dead secrecy. Nothing about the discussions came out in public. No authorized representative of the UN even gave a summary of the nature of the discussions. Only the U.S. representative, Thomas Pickering, gave his version of what happened, in which he as much as said that the Security Council had authorized the use of force--a phrase not found in any of the resolutions.
Governments with parliamentary institutions are presumably obligated to report to them on questions of war and peace. When it comes to possible hostilities, they are obligated to get the approval of their respective parliamentary institutions before, not after, the fact. But none of this has happened so far.
Usurpation of war powers
The Bush administration in particular disregarded not only the constitutional provisions which empower Congress alone with the authority to declare war, but also the War Powers Act of 1973. The latter was supposed to plug each and every loophole so that the military could no longer usurp congressional authority and move in troops en masse, virtually creating a war crisis without any color of constitutional or legislative procedures.
Whence comes all this secrecy in the high councils of government regarding matters of life and death? Who are the driving forces keeping it all so hush-hush?
Secrecy is a characteristic feature of the so-called Seven Sisters, the seven major oil companies which have controlled the production, refining and marketing of all Middle East oil. They are most concerned with the oil in the Arabian peninsula, which they have considered their turf dating back more than 70 years.
Who are they?
The seven are Exxon, Gulf, Texaco, Mobil, Standard Oil of California, British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell.
Their infamous exploits are recounted in detail in a number of books, the more authoritative being The Seven Sisters, by Anthony Sampson (Viking, 1975); Oil and World Power, by Peter Odell (Pelican, 1983); and the most readable, The Empire of Oil, by Harvey O'Connor (Monthly Review Press, 1955).
British carved out Kuwait
Only in the last few days have the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times begun to slightly lift the veil of the avaricious and extortionate empire that controls the vital arteries of life on the Arabian peninsula. For instance, the Washington Post of Aug. 31 finally revealed that "in late November 1922 ... the modern borders of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were established by British imperial fiat." The British representative to the Uqair Conference in the Arabian desert, Colonel Sir Percy Cox, "himself drew what became the Kuwait-Iraq border." Cox was a representative of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
This validates what Saddam Hussein himself had said in an Aug. 10 address, that "Western colonialism divided and established weak states ruled by [royal] families that offered [the colonialist] services that facilitated his mission. The colonialists, to ensure their petroleum interests ... set up these disfigured petroleum states."
For background to the historical evolution of the empire of oil, see Ida Tarbell's excellent account, The History of the Standard Oil Company. An understanding of the evolution of the Rockefeller fortune will help in following the ins and outs of the struggle of these seven potentates and their lesser brothers and sisters, which seem to be forever engaged in secret alliances, coups, efforts at bribing the governing groups in these countries and setting one group against another. When that fails, they are adept at obtaining the open intervention of their respective imperialist governments.
Long history of oil intrigue
What is at stake in the current crisis is the fabulous empire of oil on the entire Arabian peninsula, and particularly the vast oil reserves of Iraq itself. This is completely left out in the current discussion in the imperialist press.
The first foreign company to establish itself in Iraq was the Iraq Petroleum Company, as early as 1914. Iraq was then under the control of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey).
Two years later a secret agreement (the Sykes-Picot treaty) was signed between Britain and France to divide the Arabian peninsula between themselves once Germany was defeated and the Ottoman Empire disintegrated. This treaty stipulated that control of the IPC would pass to the hands of the British. Subsequently Gulf Oil of the U.S. obtained an interest in it.
Over the next 70 years, virtually every area of political struggle in Iraq revolved around the progressive, anti-imperialist forces trying to get rid of the oil companies while the reactionary stooges, who became their virtual prisoners, tried to retain them. Since the early twenties, when British Petroleum, Gulf and several others got control of the flow of oil in Iraq, there has been one relentless struggle between the people and the various administrations of the government, leading to coups of one sort or another. The underlying factor was always not just political sovereignty but the ownership and control of the oil by the foreign imperialist oil monopolies.
The Iraqi Revolution of 1958 nationalized some aspects of the oil industry, but the oil companies retained a percentage of the oil and paid royalties to the government. It was only in 1972, 14 years later, that the Iraqi government finally dislodged the foreign companies from ownership and control of these vast oil fields.
Says Peter Odell in Oil and World Power, "Just the essential communications infrastructure of these U.S.A.-centered international firms rivals that of the foreign services of the majority of the world's nations, and they are indeed in the forefront of the efforts to secure private, global communications by means of orbiting satellites."
Taken together, their resources rival even the U.S. State Department!
Secrecy imposed by oil monopolies
The secrecy at the UN reflects the secrecy of these global oil monopolies. Secrecy is their indispensable weapon in the struggle to blind public opinion to their worldwide illegal operations. It is they, together with the military-industrial complex, the banks and the Bush government, which have imposed this secrecy upon the UN Security Council.
These secret agreements are reflected in the U.S. government's fundamental policy. In Washington's view, the interests of the oil monopolies are identical to the so-called U.S. national interest.
While the secret treaties have undergone many revisions, their essence remains--the robbery and exploitation of the wealth of oppressed peoples, and the redivision of this booty among the principal predatory imperialist powers. This is the essence of the war crisis right now.
The Seven Sisters are the source of constant internal instability in the oil-producing countries precisely because of the cutthroat competition among them in the search for areas of oil exploration.
A current example would be Yemen, where the oil company owned by the Texas-based Hunt family has the sole right to explore for, pump and market the oil. At present, it is apparently on friendly terms with the Yemeni government and is not interfering in its internal affairs. But what usually happens to upset such a relationship is that another company attempts to get in on the oil exploration and drilling. If the government turns it down, the struggle between the two oil companies can have grave consequences. Either the government is overturned or becomes a pliant tool of one or both in the process of the struggle between the oil companies.
The Seven Sisters redivide markets
The Seven Sisters have decided to reshuffle the agreements that have existed since the end of the Second World War. Advances in technology and the changing economic patterns of power have made it necessary for the imperialists to reconsider some of the older agreements and establish a new modus vivendi.
As we have stated in earlier articles, the agreements to redivide markets and resources are secret, but occasionally because of rivalries and irreconcilable disagreements among the predators, some information is leaked to those most friendly in the media or the press. Thus, William Buckley in his column of Aug. 31 (New York Daily News) revealed:
"When the dust settles on the current crisis, and that may be sooner than projected by those who think in terms of blockades lasting through the winter, we should have a long-term contract with Saudi Arabia."
A contract presupposes an agreement that is arrived at by both parties, without coercion or compulsion of any kind. Otherwise the agreement is null and void.
Nevertheless, Buckley goes on, "The parties would be the U.S., Japan, Canada, Italy, Germany, France and the United Kingdom."
Those are the very same imperialist powers engaged in the present conflict! They're the ones pushing for the redivision of world markets and sources of raw materials, as they did during the first and second world wars. The model was the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement. All of this is undertaken under the mandatory stimulus of the giant multinational oil companies.
"The signatory nations," says Buckley, "would guarantee the independence of Saudi Arabia."
Some independence!
"In return, Saudi Arabia would sell oil over the next 15 years to each of the signatory powers in quantities of up to 150% of the signatories' purchases in 1989. The price would be the same as the price of oil on the free market in Galveston, Texas."
What about anti-trust act?
This is precisely the kind of illegal combination that was outlawed by the original Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890, which the big oil corporations have whittled down over the years, making the anti-trust law a dead letter as far as the oil monopolies are concerned.
The agreement revealed by Buckley is characteristic of the consortiums or cartels which the giant oil companies have formed and re-formed dozens of times in controlling the world's oil supply. They set quotas (up to 150% of the 1989 level), time limits or duration of contract, decide who sells the oil, even who can buy it, and how the price will be determined--and all this constitutes the secret way consortiums or cartels operate. They are the greatest menace, even to the orderly functioning of a capitalist government.
Such consortiums are directed particularly against oppressed countries who do not have oil or are not clients of the big imperialist powers and thus find it difficult to obtain oil on the basis of the so-called free market. Such agreements constitute in effect a monopolistic restraint upon trade.
Finally, with respect to the independence of Saudi Arabia, Buckley's revelations are interesting because they represent a leak from the Bush administration--or rather the Bush-Reagan administration, since Reagan appears on television regularly to boost the National Review, the mouthpiece of Buckley and of the giant monopolies.
The independence of Saudi Arabia would be guaranteed by "enough troops and facilities to guard against a blitzkrieg.... Any objection raised on the grounds that there might be a political evolution within Saudi Arabia in the direction of a democratic government would be irrelevant."
So the overthrow of the monarchy or establishment of a democratic government is irrelevant!
Why? Because the agreement "guarantees the freedom of Saudi Arabia, not the present government. And any new government that followed would be held to existing arrangements."
Then comes the coup de grace. "Once the document has been signed, OPEC is finished." So you see, one of the principal aims of the war is to finish off OPEC, to take full control of the oil resources of the entire peninsula. Part of the oil would remain under the nominal control of Saudi Arabia, which of course would remain an occupied country.
How foolish it is for our liberals to join the reactionary capitalist establishment, which is shedding a Niagara of crocodile tears over tiny Kuwait! This is not the issue. It is a red herring thrown in to confuse the masses, no different than the assassination of the Archduke of Austria, which was seized upon by the imperialist bandits to drag the masses into World War I.
Marxism vs. bourgeois liberalism
What then is the fundamental difference between Marxism and bourgeois liberalism as regards just and unjust wars?
The Marxist conception of the struggle against war arises from the nature of the capitalist system, which is driven like an engine in the pursuit of super-profits and must constantly expand in order to guarantee these profits. It is incapable of having a consistent peace policy, even when it attempts to do so.
Liberals, on the other hand, divorce the politics of the capitalist government from its economic anatomy and class structure. They most often take the view that military intervention by a capitalist state is the result of a mistaken policy. They do not see or do not wish to see that the political policy flows from the economic needs and structure of capitalism. More often than not, they blame the particular administration or governing group at the time for the war, not taking cognizance of what Marxists have always known, that any particular administration of the capitalist state is merely the executive committee of that state and functions on behalf of the capitalist class.
Liberalism separates politics from economics. Instead of taking a class view of any particular struggle, either foreign or domestic, they substitute bourgeois morality for class politics. This prevents them and all who follow them from taking a thoroughly progressive and revolutionary view of the evolving capitalist system, which has moved in the last century from a relatively competitive stage of development into a monopolist, decadent one. Resorting to repression and violence abroad has become a characteristic and inseparable feature of the system.
Moreover, a diplomatic solution can become just as onerous as a military one, depending on what the solution is! Buckley's solution is a diplomatic one. If you ask France, Britain and the U.S., all the interventions have come about because of the failure of diplomacy on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressors. The condemnation of Iraq with respect to Kuwait is to put an equal sign between the oppressor and the oppressed.
The liberal elements are entranced with all the talk about a diplomatic solution, failing to see that the proponents of an immediate strike are using diplomacy as a cover to give the Pentagon time to get its troops and weapons in place for a "swift, simultaneous and lethal strike." Who is the leading spokesperson of such a course? None other than Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state and national security adviser under the Nixon administration and protege of the oil-rich Rockefellers. ("Saddam Must Go Quickly," New York Post, Aug. 20.)
With respect to the issue of a diplomatic or military solution, Kissinger says "it is important to understand that America has crossed its Rubicon."
Kissinger's conclusion is given force by today's revelation that the U.S. is militarizing not only Saudi Arabia but the entire Gulf area.