Sua - I’m not sure which map you’re referring to. I’m assuming the second one, which showed the borders as set by Versailles, and not the National Geographic map. For some reason the Hubbert Peak site is now asking for a userid and a password - but Saturday it let me in just fine. I have a copy of the graphic on my computer at home and will paste a link to it later. In any case, the only oil that Britain knew about in 1920 was entirely in Iraq; the NG map indicates this clearly. There were no other oilfields in operation in 1920 on the Arabian peninsula. At the same time, the relative magnitude of the field in operation at the time showed it was outperforming all but a handful of wells. Britain surely didn’t think that was a fluke, and therefore they wanted to have as much land on the Arabian peninsula under its direct control in the event of further discoveries of oil.
Whether or not ibn Saud planned to honor the treaty, and regardless of whether Britain was aware of ibn Saud’s intent at the time Versailles was signed, the borders on the Arabian Peninsula were set by the rulers of colonial powers without the apparent involvement or agreement of the local rulers and/or the local population in general. Why? Because one of the world’s biggest oil fields was in the region and the colonial power that could grab the most neighboring land would reap the most benefits from the further discovery of oil. Plain and simple.
Yah, I had that problem, too - I was referring to the Versailles map.
Not true - there was the Persian fields. Why didn’t the British take over Persia?
Whether or not ibn Saud planned to honor the treaty, and regardless of whether Britain was aware of ibn Saud’s intent at the time Versailles was signed, the borders on the Arabian Peninsula were set by the rulers of colonial powers without the apparent involvement or agreement of the local rulers and/or the local population in general. Why? Because one of the world’s biggest oil fields was in the region and the colonial power that could grab the most neighboring land would reap the most benefits from the further discovery of oil. Plain and simple.
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In the early 16th Century, the Portugese and the Spanish, under the authority of the Pope, divided the unexplored world between them. The only problem was that they forgot to get the rest of the world’s approval of the division. Therefore, those upstart British and French, in complete defiance of this nice and legal treaty, took over parts of the unexplored world.
Let us take as truth that the primary goal of the British in setting the national borders of the Middle East was control of oil. They didn’t succeed.
You put great importance on the possible fact that the British didn’t consult with the native rulers before setting the national borders. OK, fine, let’s suppose they did not. What was the end result?
The end result was that the lovely map the Brits drew is a curiousity, a museum piece. The national borders as they currently exist, and as they were established very soon after the Versailles map was drawn, do not comport with the Versailles map. Ibn Saud conquered the Hedjaz and a large portion of what was marked as the “British Aden hinterland.”
Perhaps the British were evil-minded oil imperialists. What matters is that they were unsuccessful evil-minded oil imperialists. I can draw all the maps of the world, denoting appropriate national borders, that I see fit. I will end up like the British - unable to enforce the borders that I have drawn.
Da feh, that’s what I meant. I keep thinking Iraq was Persia, but it’s Iran. My guess is that Persia was not part of the Ottoman Empire - hence D’Arcy’s petitioning the Shah for the commission and not the Sultan - but that Iraq and points east were, and thus up for grabs at the end of the war when the Ottoman Empire was broken up.
Result does not negate intent. The British guessed rightly that there was oil in Arabia, and it knew that breaking the peninsula up into a bunch of little monarchies instead of another new empire like the Ottoman would serve its purposes better. Therefore Britain went ahead with the attempt to carve up Arabia according to its own interests. ibn Saud threw a wrench in the works by seizing more land than he was given under the treaty, but the essential divisions remained. Britain didn’t end up controlling all the oil of the Arabian peninsula but it controlled a large part of it through its colonial administration of pieces of the peninsula and the Middle East up through the 1960s.
Again, result does not negate intent. The British went in and carved up Arabia in order to facilitate its control over the oil reserves they were guessing lay under the sand. The United States involved itself in the Middle East for the same reasons, with the addition of the “sphere of influence”-based conflict between the two superpowers existing at the time. Now there is potential for a pipeline across Afghanistan that, if built by US oil companies, has the greatest probability of being subjected to unquestioned US control - something the other pipelines, with all their economic advantages, don’t have, if I understand correctly. That potential is great enough for the US government to intervene in Afghan politics to ensure a stable and pliable government. While the events of 9/11 gave the US the pretext for direct military intervention, the drive to get the Taliban either to play ball or to replace them if they didn’t had been going on long before that.
Umm, no. The “essential divisions” did not remain. Ibn Saud conquered (guess from looking at a map) well over 90% of the Arabian peninsula, by the end of the 20’s.
Here is a map of the British Empire in the Middle East. It’s interactive, giving the rough time of withdrawal from each area run by the Empire. Compare it with the map on the Treaty of Versailles site and you’ll see that there isn’t a whole lot of difference with the exception of the British Hinterlands. Moreover, the British Empire had Saudi Arabia completely ringed off - control of both ends of the Red Sea, the Strait of Hormuz - and given the strength of their presence in the area, I’d think they stood a good chance of calling the shots concerning Saudi Arabia, ibn Saud’s territorial victories notwithstanding. Imperialism is a relationship of unequals, and just because Saudi Arabia didn’t end up a British colony doesn’t imply that ibn Saud was somehow the equal of King George.
Saudi Arabia looks to be more than double the size of the Nejd, ibn Saud’s territory noted in the Versailles map. I consider that “a whole lot of difference.”
Britain didn’t call the shots with ibn Saud or Saudi oil. Please re-read Tamerlane’s informative post.
“Imperialism is a relationship of unequals”? So France is an imperialist lackey of the US? We could kick their ass easily, after all.
**SuaSponte ** ““Imperialism is a relationship of unequals”? So France is an imperialist lackey of the US? We could kick their ass easily, after all.”
I’ve kind of lost sight of what’s being argued here. Sua, are you trying to deny the existence of imperialism? That is, are you reasoning that simply because power differentials exist between two Western democracies (France the US), and no one calls that imperialism, that from here one can deduce that there has never been any imperialism?
I don’t have time at the mo’ for a full reply to John and others. But it seems to me that we’ve reached some kind of consensus that you can’t simply deny oil interests a) in the history of the West/Middle East relations and b) in the particular vested interests of the present administration. That said, O. I still think you’re underplaying the importance of the Cold War in Afghanistan. The Cold War was about many things: it’s just not reducible to oil. As a socialist you oughta know, no?
And how does that negate their intent? How does the fact that Britain didn’t succeed in their efforts suddenly render their intent to go in and carve up the Arabian Peninsula in their own interests invalid?
Imperialism is a relationship of unequals, but military disparity alone does not an imperialist relationship make.
If the Cold War was still on, your argument would be valid, although it does have validity when looking at the whole history of US involvement in the region. But the present war in Afghanistan doesn’t have the Cold War as a backdrop.
The attacks of September 11 are the reason for the method with which the US is dealing with Afghanistan now. But the potential for oil profits is the reason why the US is involved with Afghanistan at all.
'Course not, Mandelstam. I was just expressing my belief that Olentzero’s definition of imperialism was either incomplete or massively overbroad. O appears to be taking two positions I disagree with. The first is that Saudi Arabia was under the thumb of Britain because Britain was more powerful and controlled much of the territory around Saudi Arabia. I disagree, and I think the fact that, when Saudi Arabia finally discovered oil in their territory, it turn to U.S., not British, companies to exploit it is compelling evidence that Saudi Arabia was an independent actor.
The second is that Britain’s motive in controlling Aden, Oman, etc. was to control Middle Eastern oil. I submit that (a) it would have required a great deal of prognostication on the part of the British, as the only oil discovered in the region at the time of Versailles was in Iran, and (b) the true motivation of the British in trying to control the corners of the Arabian peninsula (and the Suez canal) was to ensure their sea lines of communication with India, a motive that Britain had had for centuries.
I didn’t want to interrupt, except to thank Lemur866, SuaSponte and John Corrado among a few others, for their informative contributions in this discussion.
So the U.S. pipeline theory may well be applied to the wrong country? After reading much of this discussion, this probably seems, at the very least to me, the most plausible explanation of the current state of affairs.
Tamerlane’s cite shows how hard the British were trying to keep ibn Saud in their pocket anyway - upping the yearly subsidy, for example. If they couldn’t keep him hemmed in militarily, they certainly seem to have made the effort to buy him off.
Here is the National Geographic map I talked about earlier. As you can plainly see, the Iranian oilfield, after a mere 11 years of operation, was producing at a second-magnitude rate - equal to only a handful of other wells, and outperformed by only one well in the world. It doesn’t take a Nostradamus to figure out that if you’ve hit one of the world’s biggest oil deposits in a place where you didn’t know there was any oil to begin with, there’s probably more where that came from, and in similar quantities. Therefore it would be in your country’s interests to try and control as much territory in the region as possible.
What, the existence of one motive automatically precludes the existence of other motives? How is keeping a short sea route to India open incompatible with controlling Arabian territory that has a huge potential for oil production?
Olentzero on the subject of the Cold War and Afghanistant:
“If the Cold War was still on, your argument would be valid, although it does have validity when looking at the whole history of US involvement in the region. But the present war in Afghanistan doesn’t have the Cold War as a backdrop.”
That is an extremely contradictory statement Olentzero. How can something validly apply to “the whole history” and yet not be part of the “backdrop” of the present? I assume you know that Osama bin Laden is among those “freedom fighters” who were trained by the CIA during the Russian aggression there. Have you read The Nation article I cited (back on p.2)? If so, do you have some fundamental disagreement with its premises (as did Collounsbury)?
“The attacks of September 11 are the reason for the method with which the US is dealing with Afghanistan now. But the potential for oil profits is the reason why the US is involved with Afghanistan at all.”
Naturally I see oil as having special bearing on anything to do with the entire region since the early twentieth century. And anyone who doesn’t see that is either hiding his/her head in the sand or has a very limited notion of what history is. But, for the same reason, disregarding the Cold War context is a mistake.
Roseus and Lemur, I think you need to distinguish between a “conspiracy theory” and the points view of being expressed here. The link to Benn with which the thread began has vanished but, as I recall it, it–like the Guardian article I posted–did not claim a conspiracy. It only highlighted the importance of oil in the region and therefore in the war. Roseus, have you read the Guardian article? It seems to have persuaded even skeptical John Corrado that there is something to be considered on this pipeline issue. Or is the Guardian too looney a newspaper for your consideration?
Sua, thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately, I know very little about British imperialism in the Middle East but here is a link that might be of interest to all reading. That is, it bears on the oil context in very general terms and it’s written by someone with an academic background in international relations.
Here is a paragraph that might bear on the O/S debate:
"The greater Gulf area (encompassing Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and several adjacent countries) has been a major international battleground ever since oil was discovered there in the early years of the 20th century. At first it was Great Britain that fought to gain control over the area’s petroleum wealth, with a particular focus on the oil reserves of Persia (renamed Iran in 1935). Later France moved into the area, seeking control over the reserves in Iraq. Further north, in the Caspian Sea basin, Czarist Russia and then the Soviet Union established a significant foothold in the oil-rich Baku area (now a part of Azerbaijan)."
OK, I guess I need to clarify too. The Cold War is a valid explanation - but not the only explanation, IMO - for the US’ involvement in Afghanistan before 1991. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, the Cold War is over, and it is therefore no longer a valid explanation for the US’ involvement in Afghanistan. So, if you look over the entire history of the issue, the Cold War does help to explain part of it, but not all of it. But it doesn’t explain why the US is in Afghanistan now, ten years after the collapse of its rival superpower.
Olentzero: So are you suggesting that the quelling of terrorist threats has nothing to do with the US’s (and their allies) current interests in Afghanistan?
Bear in mind: in asking that question I put entirely aside the question of whether this kind of war is in fact an effective means of deterring, much less eliminating, terrorism. I only ask you this: in understanding both the underlying causes of and the present motives for the war in Afghanistan, do you entirely discount the intention to remove a regime that is believed to have deliberately harbored terrorists, and to replace it would a less hostile or even friendly regime?
Again, my question isn’t at all intended to suggest that these intentions are necessarily noble, or just or that the means are efficient or appropriate. Those issue remain subject to debate. My question for you is only, do you entirely discount that intention?
No, Mandelstam, I don’t. Whoever was behind 9/11 chose a plan that the US had no choice but to respond to in a direct fashion. But (and I believe you and I agree on this point) that doesn’t mean it’s the only reason the US is involving itself in Afghanistan.
I suggest you re-read my posts, as you seem to have completely misinterpreted my points.
A.) While one cannot deny oil interests in the history of the West/Middle East relations, one can certainly deny oil interests in the matter of getting us involved in the Afghanistan situation. In fact, I do.
Let us consider. Why is Osama bin Laden trying to get Muslims to destroy the United States? From what I have read, the main reason is our interference in the state of Saudi Arabia, namely placing troops in the country in order to protect the ruling government.
But if one removes oil from the equation, do we necessarily drop all assistance to the Saudis? They have a neighbor to the north (Iraq) who has shown itself interested in domination of the region and willing to use and manufacture weapons of mass destruction (researching nuclear weapons, building chemical weapons). Quite frankly, remove all oil from the country and we would likely still be there to protect the Saudis from being overrun by Hussein as Hussein tries to make himself the Pan-Arabic power.
Of course, the other reason bin Laden asserts is the treatement of Palestinians by Israel; I still have yet to hear any reason why a desire for oil gave us any reason to involve ourselves with Israel despite your assertions, Mandelstam. Whether this is really part of why bin Laden is against us or merely pandering to what he feels will play on “the street”, don’t know. But you still can’t tie it to oil in any way, shape, or form.
Therefore, I reject the idea that had the US no need for oil, there never would have been a 9/11 bombing.
B.) I have yet to hear a reasonable argument as to why oil is such a vested interest in this administration. I have heard allusions that because many members of the Bush administration had worked with or for oil companies, that therefore all the Bush administration’s goals must be to fatten the oil companies. I have already stated why people who work in the oil industry do not necessarily automatically love everyone else who works in the oil industry. I have already stated why working to fatten the oil companies’ pockets makes no money for Bush or any administration member. I am still waiting for a coherent answer as to why Bush works to enrich oil companies at the cost of the national good or national security that does not sound like a weak plot from an X-files episode.
Therefore, I reject your contention that we are in consensus upon these issues.
C.) The only thing the Guardian article has convinced me of is that there is some theoretic strategic worth to the pipeline. That does not translate to the pipeline being in any way, shape, or form the reason for the war in Afghanistan. Again, there was strategic worth to the United States implementing Operation Paperclip and capturing German rocket scientists for the eventual building of ICBMs and the Apollo program. That does not mean that the capture of these scientists played any part whatsoever in the decision of the United States to go to war with Germany. Germany declared war upon us, we fought back, and as a side benefit at the end of the war we captured German scientists. Likewise, bin Laden declared war upon us, we fought back, and as a side benefit we may be able to have a pipeline built in Afghanistan. Claiming that the pipeline is a reason for war is putting the cart in front of the horse.
John, you had written on the subject of the Guardian article:
“Yes, the article makes a good case that a pipeline going through Afghanistan would be of strategic importance.”
At that time, one of the issues being debated was whether the question of the pipeline wasn’t entirely moot or deluded: e.g., that the Afghan pipeline had already been replaced by other pipelines, or that there was no evidence that it had ever been of specific interest to US companies. I took your above statement to be a concession that, as you say, an Afghan pipeline “would be of strategic importance.”
That is all I meant when I asked Roseus to consider that–if I may quote myself–even you, despite your skepticism, had reached the conclusion that “there is something to be considered on this pipeline issue.”
Now if you will read my post as carefully as you would like me to read yours, I think you’ll agree that there’s nothing particularly distorting about what I said. There is “something to be considered” about the pipeline issue; it can’t simply be written off as strategically unimportant to the US. And insofar as it was strategically important and remains strategically important, anyone who wants to keep an open mind on the matter has to continue to keep it in view while in the act of considering what the US is doing in Afghanistan and why.
In other words, it’s not an issue that can ever be put aside. Even if one feels–as you do–that it has no bearing on present military actions, that is not to say that it will not have evident bearing on something that happens 3 days or 3 years from now.
It was in that spirit–contrasting what I took to be your somewhat open mind to a different kind of mentality–that I addressed Roseus. For it seemed to me that Roseus and, to a lesser extent, Lemur were simply writing off any discussion of oil or pipeline as “conspiracy theory.” That, to my mind, is close-minded thinking of the worst kind. There may indeed be conspiracy theories afloat, but reasoned arguments about the influence of oil interests cannot be reduced to them.
I will answer the rest of your post including your earlier points about Israel. I can’t just yet due to work duties; but I did want to clarify.
Olentzero, you are correct. That is, you and I do in fact agree that the decision to respond to terrorist atrocities with military action of this kind has multiple causes.
John, you had written on the subject of the Guardian article:
“Yes, the article makes a good case that a pipeline going through Afghanistan would be of strategic importance.”
At that time, one of the issues being debated was whether the question of the pipeline wasn’t entirely moot or deluded: e.g., that the Afghan pipeline had already been replaced by other pipelines, or that there was no evidence that it had ever been of specific interest to US companies. I took your above statement to be a concession that, as you say, an Afghan pipeline “would be of strategic importance.”
That is all I meant when I asked Roseus to consider that–if I may quote myself–even you, despite your skepticism, had reached the conclusion that “there is something to be considered on this pipeline issue.”
Now if you will read my post as carefully as you would like me to read yours, I think you’ll agree that there’s nothing particularly distorting about what I said. There is “something to be considered” about the pipeline issue; it can’t simply be written off as strategically unimportant to the US. And insofar as it was strategically important and remains strategically important, anyone who wants to keep an open mind on the matter has to continue to keep it in view while in the act of considering what the US is doing in Afghanistan and why.
In other words, it’s not an issue that can ever be put aside. Even if one feels–as you do–that it has no bearing on present military actions, that is not to say that it will not have evident bearing on something that happens 3 days or 3 years from now.
It was in that spirit–contrasting what I took to be your somewhat open mind to a different kind of mentality–that I addressed Roseus. For it seemed to me that Roseus and, to a lesser extent, Lemur were simply writing off any discussion of oil or pipeline as “conspiracy theory.” That, to my mind, is close-minded thinking of the worst kind. There may indeed be conspiracy theories afloat, but reasoned arguments about the influence of oil interests cannot be reduced to them.
I will answer the rest of your post including your earlier points about Israel. I can’t just yet due to work duties; but I did want to clarify.
Olentzero, you are correct. That is, you and I do in fact agree that the decision to respond to terrorist atrocities with military action of this kind has multiple causes.
