|
March 15, 2003
One way of gaining a perspective on current American actions in the Middle East is to look at it from through the strategic policy eyes of the past. Lets go back 20 years or so and revisit the Carter Doctrine. On 23 January 1980, in his State of the Union Address, President Jimmy Carter announced a new American policy that came to be called the Carter Doctrine. Referring to the recent Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter warned that:
"An attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."
The then President of the US sought to persuade the world that American interests in and around the Persian Gulf were so vital that the United States would fight if necessary to protect them. What Carter was saying is saying is that oil resources of the Persian Gulf War were vital to U.S. security and so he pledged in his Carter Doctrine to defend U.S interests there 'by any means necessary including military force.'
This doctrine restates a central American policy since 1945 to ensure that the United States would always have unrestrained access to Persian Gulf oil. The instruments hae varied. The United States initially relied on Great Britain to protect American access to the Gulf. When Britain pulled out of the Middle East region in 1971, the US then chose to rely on the Shah of Iran. When, the Shah was overthrown by Islamic militants loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 Washington decided that it would have to assume responsibility on its own to protect the oil flow. Hence the Carter doctrine.
Fast forward to the present. Is not the current president of the US, George W. Bush carrying out this doctrine? Consider a speech given by Vice President Dick Cheney on August 26, 2002 before the Veterans of Foreign Wars. It is stated that:
"Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror, and seated atop ten percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors -- confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth."
Is this not the Carter Doctrine with a few more bells and whistles? The Iraqi regime threatens vital US interests in the region. Containment does not work. So it must be taken out. Is this saying that the regime must be removed because of the potential threat it poses to the free flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to the US and its allies?
|
