Prince Reza Pahlavi II

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Pahlavi party
Constituionalist Party of Iran.

Talk Wit Prince Reza Pahlavi

http://www.rezapahlavi.org/audiovideo/VOA-TV-MizehGerdibaShoma23August2006.html

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Baziaz harfash kheily bahale, afarin!!
Vali ziad harfash pokhte nist.
Baziaz harfash G*H khordane tamame.

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Today our choice is clear

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Royal Democrat

Reza Pahlavi says America should help Iranians who oppose the regime.

BY NANCY DE WOLF SMITH
Saturday, June 3, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

It's been an agonizing week for Iranian patriots. On Monday, Washington's ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, suggested that if Iran's ruling clerics abandon efforts to make nuclear weapons, they can remain in power. Thursday brought another jolt, when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the U.S. would join direct negotiations with Tehran if Iran verifiably halt its weapons program.

In one fell swoop, it seems, the U.S. not only committed itself to a course that is certain to fail. It blundered into the one strategy guaranteed to strengthen the revolutionary regime while simultaneously undercutting the only force capable of stopping it: the Iranian people themselves.

At least, that's what I thought Reza Pahlavi would say when I telephoned Thursday for a comment on Secretary Rice's statement, following up on a long conversation we had in person last week. But Mr. Pahlavi, perhaps drawing on diplomatic skills he's honed in the quarter-century since his father, the shah of Iran, was deposed in 1979, gracefully called it "overall . . . a good move by Washington." The reason? "It will once and for all force Tehran's hand," and show that "the clerical regime is irreversibly committed to its dual-use enrichment program; that it will seek to stall for time, by following a pattern of deceit and duplicity; that at the end, it will prove its untrustworthiness and incapacity to become a reliable partner in diplomacy."

But then Mr. Pahlavi brought up the alternative strategy which Iranians, at home and abroad, have been urging deaf Western policy makers to adopt for years now: "That can only be internal pressure on the regime . . . support for proponents of democracy and human rights in Iran. There is no other answer."

Mr. Pahlavi should know, and not only because he is the son of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who for a time made Iran the linchpin of Middle Eastern stability and set his country on a course toward modernity and prosperity. The famous name helps, but so, for instance, does the Internet. From his home in a Washington suburb where I visited him last week, Mr. Pahlavi is in constant contact with people all over his homeland, including curious students who turn to him as a link with a more liberal past and also to exchange thoughts about a democratic future.
In short, Mr. Pahlavi easily grasps what the rest of the international community refuses to understand or to acknowledge.

"There is no incentive that we can give the Islamic Republic to stand down," he told me over Memorial Day weekend. "They need to do what they're doing, first and foremost because this is a totalitarian system. It has to keep the mood on the streets in its favor by continuing this process. If they are using the slogan of enrichment as a tool to keep these people mobilized, the minute they concede, they will lose their entire praetorian guard. Therefore there's no way that they are going to concede on that point."

The threat of sanctions or the promise of aid won't budge the regime either, he says. "There is no economic incentive that you can throw at them, because you are not dealing with a conventional state, in the sense that it is ultimately accountable and responsible and cares about the citizens living in that boundary. It's not the welfare of the people that matters to them. They can send $100 million to Hamas in Palestine when people are starving on the streets of Iran. They could care less about their economic status, so long as they can fuel their own war machine.

"You cannot even offer them a security guarantee, they don't care. For them, war is a gift from God. [President] Ahmadinejad is talking about Armageddon. He's talking about paving the way for the reemergence of the 12th imam, which is coming back to the planet to bring back stability and peace after major cataclysm. They really believe that."

Until that happens, the prospect of negotiations with the U.S. is a little godsend for the regime, Mr. Pahlavi explains. Iran's rulers can say, "Look at us! We're standing against the Great Satan . . . and guess what? We have brought them to their knees, we have brought them to the table."

As for Tehran's end game, that's simple: "Ultimately, what is the grand prize for them? They would like to achieve something the Soviets never could--the control of the Middle East. The economic lifeline of the Western world. By encircling the Persian Gulf, by institutionalizing themselves, with their proxies operating everywhere, and in a fait accompli-type scenario, force the world to reckon with them. Naturally, if they ultimately get the bomb, their deterrent will be even more dangerous."

Mr. Pahlavi, who is 45, has seen danger in his own life. He was at school in the United States when his parents left Iran, but joined them in exile and, after his father died in Egypt in 1980, became a target himself of the new regime's vilification campaign. Today, although he does not advertise his address, he doesn't surround himself with bodyguards. Inside his airy and attractive house in Maryland, pictures on a side table of his regally attired father and mother are the only obvious signs of his unique heritage.

Mr. Pahlavi is so focused on the future of Iran that he prefers not to spend time on the past. Even so, when I ask what might be different today if the Iranian revolution had never taken place, he points to a chain of events that seem even worse with hindsight than they did at the time: "The Russians probably would not have invaded Afghanistan the way they did, and Saddam Hussein would not have attacked Iran. . . . From Sudan to everywhere else you can think of, there have been acts of terrorism, attacks on apartments in Khobar, the blowing up of Marine barracks in Beirut. It's been all over the place. If you look at the world the way it was before this regime took over, we didn't have any of these problems."

And yet a solution to all of this is percolating up today, Mr. Pahlavi says, and it's coming from the Iranian people. In fact, he insists, in dealing with a belligerent Tehran, "there is only one thing that the outside world can do, and that is to tell the regime: 'We are serious about supporting the people who are inside Iran who are against you.' That is the only thing that will make Mr. Khamenei [Iran's supreme leader] and everybody stand down. Because nothing else ruffles them. The only thing they are really scared of are the people themselves."

Peaceful revolutions from within have worked before, so why, he asks, isn't the West investing in the Iranian people--"the same way they supported so many movements in Eastern Europe that ultimately brought down communist governments that were under Moscow's umbrella?" Dissidents are everywhere, in the universities, workplaces, the conventional armed forces, he adds: "There are thousands of cells . . . each trying to bring as much pressure as they can--but with very limited resources. Imagine the cumulative weight of all these resistance groups in a civil disobedience act--nonviolent, we don't believe in violent change--that could begin sustained pressure to the point of paralyzing the system until it would collapse."

It might be easy to dismiss Mr. Pahlavi as a typical pipe-dreaming exile if there weren't so much evidence from Iran of mounting popular unrest, including student demonstrations and other massive protests and labor strikes. Arguably, unrest does not automatically translate into a force for change. Like other Iranians in opposition, though, he has reason to believe that they could. People in Iran are among the world's busiest bloggers, for one thing, and many are talking their heads off to anyone who will listen:
"They want to have justice, they want to have equality, they want to have freedom of speech, they want to have a better life, they want to be connected to this progressive world, they like modernity. . . . And they know that the only obstacle between them and the free world is this regime. When you talk to young students today, they say: 'We don't have any more fears. We are out there, we are fighting--all we need is the support and recognition because that is going to prompt even more action inside Iran.'"

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Helping opponents of the regime inside Iran does seem like a smart option, especially when you look at Iraq today--and then imagine how much better it would be if Saddam had been replaced by Iraqis who had already decided to pull together for a common cause and similar goals. It's also a far less precarious and destructive option than a military attack on the current regime or its nuclear sites.

Mr. Pahlavi is horrified by the thought, and not only because he loves his country. He can come up with plenty of other objections, beginning with the fact that Iran's top ayatollah and the rest of the regime would be the only beneficiaries: "I think Mr. Khamenei is sitting there praying and hoping that such an attack would occur. Because it would play right into their hands: They can call another jihad or it would give them every excuse in the book to deflect attention yet again [from their failings]. It would be the greatest gift you could give them."

Besides, he continues, "nobody in this world really believes that a full-scale military attack on Iran is foreseeable. Tanks marching all the way to Tehran--impossible. Limited air strikes at best. [And] it wouldn't achieve anything except infuriate the people; . . . you would lose many nationalists, who would say: 'This is an attack on Iran, not defiance of the regime--you want to hurt the regime, why don't you put sanctions on the regime? Keep their diplomats from traveling. Why don't you go and block and freeze all their assets and bank accounts and dummy companies that they operate through and [use to] transfer money to their cronies?'"

Why not indeed? Mr. Pahlavi says he is no enemy of diplomacy. What he can't figure out is why so much time and effort has been focused on Iran's rulers, while so little attention and support has been directed to the Iranian people. As he emphasizes every chance he gets, "It's not by sending the Sixth Fleet and annihilating the entire Iranian navy that anything is going to be achieved, not to mention the loss of lives. It's going to be by helping the people on the streets. . . . They are the best army that can fight against this evil and remove it from the planet."

By the way, Mr. Pahlavi says that in a democratic Iran, he would be honored to assume the title of shah in a parliamentary system, but only if the Iranian people ask him to. He already has at least one vote. On the way to meet him at his house, the nice lady who drove me there quite naturally referred to her boss as "His Majesty."

Ms. Smith is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.

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Royal Iran King Cyrus Reza Pahlavi Message to the Women


Royal Iran King Cyrus Reza Pahlavi Message to the Women

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[I]

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Noam Chomsky needs no introduction. He's MIT Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics and a leading anti-war critic and voice for over 40 years for social equity and justice. He's also one of the world's most influential and widely cited intellectuals on the Left. Gilbert Achcar is a Lebanese-French academic, author, social activist, Middle East expert and professor of politics and international relations at the University of Paris. Their new book, Perilous Power, is based on 14 hours of dialogue between them over three days in January, 2006 and updated six months later in July in a separate Epilogue at the end. It covers US foreign policy in the most volatile and turbulent region in the world, the Middle East, and discusses the wars in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan as well as such key issues as terrorism, fundamentalism, oil, democracy, possible war against Iran and much more. Chomsky and Achcar collaborated with Stephen Shalom, Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University acting as moderator to pose questions and keep the discussion on track.

The book is divided into five chapters. This review will cover each of them in enough detail to give the reader a good sense of their flavor and content.

Chapter One - Terrorism and Conspiracies

The underlying raison d'etre used to justify the post-9/11 Middle East and Central Asian wars is the so-called "war on terror" and claimed overall threat therefrom, and that's how the dialogue between the two authors begins with moderator Stephen Shalom asking them to define terrorism. Chomsky explained he's been writing about it since Ronald Reagan was elected and declared "war on international terrorism" using rhetoric like the "scourge of terrorism" and "the plague of the modern age." It was clear what the administration had in mind was its own planned Contra war of terrorism against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the one west of it against the FMLN opposition in El Salvador with US regional head of state terrorism John Negroponte (now US Director of National Intelligence in charge of "homeland" terrorism against the public) directing it all through his US Ambassador's office in Hondurus situated between the two conflict zones. The idea was to crush the outlier Nicaraguan government (that wouldn't play by US-imposed rules) and the opposition resistance to the fascist government in El Salvador to establish or solidify reliable right wing client dictators who always understand "who's boss."

Chomsky provides a useful definition of "terrorism" from the US Code. It's "the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature....through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear." Chomsky then observes that by that standard the US is the world's leading terrorist state, but this is unacceptable to any US administration so all of them go by the undebated notion that terrorism excludes what "we" do to "them" and is only what only what "they" do to "us." What "we" do is always benign humanitarian intervention even when it's done through the barrel of a gun the way we're doing it in Iraq, Afghanistan and in partnership with Israel in Palestine and against the Lebanese. Condoleezza Rice's rhetoric explains this, without a touch of irony, as "democracy (being) messy."

Achcar expands the concept of terrorism to what the European Union (EU) has used since 2002 that includes "causing extensive destruction to a Government or public facility....a public place or private property likely to....result in major economic loss (or even) threatening to commit" such acts. He acknowledges this broader notion is a dangerous enlargement of the concept as it could include almost any act of civil disobedience a government wishes to label an act of terrorism.

The discussion then covers whether or not a credible terror threat exists, and Chomsky believes a serious one does unrelated to 9/11. He notes the comments of two former US Defense Secretaries who see the likelihood of a nuclear detonation on a US target in the next decade as greater than 50% while US intelligence thinks it's almost certain unless current US policy changes. Chomsky also mentions the possibility of other forms of terror attacks against us all stemming from the 1954 CIA notion of "blowback" that referred to the unintended consequences from US hostile acts abroad like overthrowing legitimate governments as it did against Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 ushering in the 25 year terror reign of the Shah. It finally led to the "blowback" 1979 revolution, and it causes similar examples of retaliation now evident in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Achcar agrees that terrorism is a reality and can also be homegrown like the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City first blamed on Muslim "terrorists" who even then were part of the anti-Muslim attitude in the country that became hysterical post-9/11.

The issue then is what's to be done about the threat, and that's a subject Chomsky has written and spoken about often - "reduce the reasons for it." In the case of the Middle East, stop attacking Muslim countries, and that will reduce "blowback" repercussions. Achcar goes further and says there's an economic aspect to the equation as well relating to the neoliberal globalization direction the West took since the Carter years. It's caused a steady erosion of the social fabric and safety net that's most apparent in the US that Achcar believes eventually "leads to forms of violent assertions of 'identity,' extremism or fanaticism, whether religious or political..." Chomsky agrees and cites projections of US intelligence agencies that the process of globalization "will be rocky, marked by chronic financial volatility and a widening economic divide." This will "foster political, ethnic, ideological and religious extremism, along with the violence that often accompanies it." The solution both authors agree on is "political justice, the rule of law, social justice (and) economic justice."

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Conspiracies

The crucial issue regarding the likelihood of a conspiracy relating to the 9/11 terror attack is then addressed which both authors dismiss out of hand and Chomsky says is "almost beyond comprehension" that the Bush administration was responsible for it. Despite considerable evidence that at the least it knew about it well in advance, he argues that the notion of administration involvement even indirectly doesn't hold water in his view. For one thing, he explains "A lot of people (had to be) involved in the planning" of this and for certain there would have been leaks. He also believes claims of administration involvement divert "attention from the real crimes" and threats from them that's "welcomed by the administration."

Achcar agrees but admits Washington did nothing to prevent the attack supporting the notion that administration officials wanted a terrorist attack they could exploit to their advantage. What happened on 9/11 served US imperial interests the same way Iraq's invasion of Kuwait did in 1990. The attack in 2001 was the "catastrophic and catalyzing event (of a) new Pearl Harbor" the neocon Project for the New American Century (PNAC) think tank said it needed at its formation in 1997 to advance the kind of radical transformation its members advocated. These are the same key people who took power in 2001, and based on their agenda since then, it's hard to dismiss their not being up to almost anything including complicitity in an attack on US soil. It's likely on the evening of 9/11 they were drinking champaign celebrating "their good fortune" in the White House.

A second conspiracy relates to the possible US role in Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Achcar says there's no way to prove it even though the US did nothing to prevent it. Chomsky, on the other hand, believes it happened because Saddam Hussein simply "misinterpreted" the message he got from US Ambassador April Glaspie, and that the US was providing aid to him right up to the time of the invasion which it only would have done for an ally that wasn't planning to attack another ally. Achcar has another view stressing that if the US wanted the invasion as a pretext for the Gulf war that followed in January, 1991, the GHW Bush administration would have maintained normal relations with Saddam right to the end so as not to tip its hand.

There's good reason to suspect the US may have wanted it. The cold war had just ended, the US needed a new enemy to justify maintaining a high military budget to avoid the "peace dividend" spoken of then, it also needed a way to reestablish a US military presence in the region because of its immense oil reserves, and since 1975 this country wanted to "bury the Vietnam syndrome" to be free again to engage in military action abroad with public consent. The Gulf war was the gift Washington hawks hoped for. The relatively simple Operation Just Cause in December, 1989 to remove Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega because he forgot who really runs his country hadn't done it, so in Achcar's words: "If Saddam Hussein did not exist at the time, they would have had to invent him." Achcar also believes the US was concerned about Saddam's military power then. His history in the region proved he was an aggressor, and that worried his neighbors like Israel and the Saudis.

If there was a plan to entrap Saddam, he walked right into it. Chomsky has another view that Saddam only became a "bad guy" after he "broke the rules." A little leeway is always permissible, but "imperial management" works by establishing reliable client states run by leaders who know who's "the boss." Saddam broke the rules by his act of "disobedience" - the same "sin" Manuel Noriega committed that led to his undoing.

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Chapter 2 - Fundamentalism

The discussion begins with the importance of fundamentalism as a source of unrest in the world. For Chomsky, its Islamic version is mainly a reaction to those forces. He explained for many years "there was strong secular nationalism all over the Arab and Muslim world." It was true in Egypt under Gamal Abdel-Nasser who was a secular nationalist, in Iraq over the past century, and in Iran for half a century until the CIA-instigated coup ousted Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953.

Achcar agrees and stresses the US assault against secular nationalist leaders led to the doctrine's failure in these countries and left a vacuum filled by Islamic fundamentalism based on the most reactionary brand of it practiced by the US's oldest client state in the region - Saudi Arabia. The US used the Saudis and its extremist model to counter communism and all forms of progressive movements. Achcar also points out that fundamentalist nongovernmental terrorism is miniscule compared to the state-sponsored kind practiced mainly by the US and Israel and is a direct outgrowth of those policies.

The US even supported the Taliban when it assumed power in 1996 believing their authoritarian rule would bring stability to the country without which planned pipelines from the landlocked Caspian Basin to warm water ports in the south would be in jeopardy. Unlike the propaganda used against them in 2001, their religious extremism, harsh treatment of women, and overall human rights abuses were of no concern at first despite any pious rhetoric about them to the contrary later on.

Chomsky then commented that the Reagan administration helped Pakistan move toward fundamentalism and even pretended it didn't know the country was developing nuclear weapons. It's now the only known Muslim country to have them. Israel also wanted to destroy the secular nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a move that led to the rise of Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist groups to challenge its supremacy. Israel followed the same strategy in Lebanon with its 1982 invasion and 18 year occupation of the country from which Hezbollah emerged as a resistance group that finally succeeded in forcing the Israelis to withdraw from the country in May, 2000 and humiliated the vaunted Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the summer, 2006 Lebanon war. More on that below. Achcar notes that in its zeal to destroy secular nationalism in the region, the US let the "genie out of the bottle" called Islamic fundamentalism it now can't control. It turned against both the US and Israel as a resistance force against oppression.

Chomsky also observes that fundamentalism isn't just a Muslim phenomenon. A powerful Christian strain of it exists in the US that has enormous influence over right wing Republican-led governments as it did during the Reagan years and especially now under George Bush who believes his agenda is a God-directed messianic mission. Achcar goes further stressing fundamentalism is a global phenomenon with strains of it in all the major religions - Judaism, Christianity (Protestant and Catholic), Hinduism, Islam and others with all of them having arisen over the last 25 years or so as a "remarkable....synchronized worldwide" phenomenon. It represents the only remaining ideological counterweight expression of mass resentment and resistance against the socially and economically destructive elements of predatory neoliberal capitalism now dominant in the West and throughout most of the world.

The discussion then turned to Saudi Arabia which Achcar describes as "the most fundamentalist Islamic state on earth" and the "most obscurantist, most reactionary, most oppressive of women" and yet so closely allied to the US under all administrations because of all that oil there - what US state department officials in 1945 described as "a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history (including the extended prize of what was available in the other regional oil-rich states)." Wealth and power always trump ideology, especially when a lot of oil is involved and a repressive ruling authority like the Saudi monarchy is willing to play ball with its US master. The two countries basically have a deal. The Saudis agree to pump whatever amount of oil Washington wants, help control its price and recycle the revenue from it in US markets and by buying our weapons. In return, the US acts as the "Lord Protector" of the kingdom exerting enormous control over it with little interest in how backward, extremist or repressive it is other than getting it to agree at times to some modest cosmetic changes only for show.

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Democracy

Next, the state of democracy in the region is discussed. Chomsky explains that over the last century there were democratic movements throughout the Middle East including in Iran and Iraq even though they weren't perfect (but neither is the US model, especially now when it's on life support at best). When the British or US controlled these states, it was another story. Both countries either opposed democracy (disingenuous rhetoric aside) or tried to prevent its development because elected leaders sometimes get the idea they have to serve the people who elected them. Authoritarian strongmen rulers under the US thumb have no such obligation. Today in Egypt the Kifaya movement is a democratic force wanting to end the dictatorship of one such man and close US ally Hosni Mubarak who's ruled the country since he succeeded Anwar Sadat in 1981. Mubarak goes through the ritual of holding elections like Saddam did, and like the deposed Iraqi dictator always manages to get about 99% of the vote in a miraculous and totally fictitious show of support.

Achcar picks up the discussion emphasizing the potential for democracy in the region mentioning the 1979 Iranian revolution ending the brutal reign of close US ally, Shah Reza Pahlavi. A major aspiration of the Iranians supporting his overthrow was democracy, but they were let down by Ayatollah Khomeini who promised it to them and then reneged once in power establishing an Islamic "Assembly of Experts" and extremist theocratic rule. Today, however, there's a limited amount of democracy in Iran with an elected president and parliament even though the unelected Supreme Leader and Guardian Council have the final say. Still Iran is an enlightened state enjoying freedoms unimaginable in a nation like Saudi Arabia where women aren't allowed to drive and there's a special police whipping people on the streets during times of prayer because they're not allowed out there then (even though these police should have the same state-imposed obligation to be inside praying). That's OK with the US because of that "greatest (of) material prizes" there and the Saudis never forgetting "who's boss." The Iranians, however, have been a prime US target for regime change for a quarter century, not for their ideology but because they prefer going their own way independent of "the boss's" authority.

Chomsky and Achcar both explain that a major deterrent to democracy, especially in the Middle East with its oil treasure, is because the US opposes it. With it, the "bad guys" might win, meaning forces hostile to western interests. The same is true in other regions where the US is willing to use force or stage so-called "demonstration elections" it can manipulate to be sure candidates it favors win as nearly always happens in Central America and key South American countries like Colombia and Peru. When "mistakes" happen and the "wrong" candidates are elected like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, or Hamas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), they can expect harsh US-directed efforts against them (or Israeli ones in the OPT) to force their removal from office. The US has tried and failed three times to depose Chavez, and Israel now has the democratically elected Hamas government on its knees in the OPT, discussed further below.

The question then was raised whether an unintended consequence of the US invasion of Iraq has been an increase in democracy in the region. Not so far, but Chomsky explains it can happen as it did in Asia following the defeat of Japanese fascism. Their atrocities inspired a wave of democratic reform that included expelling the European (and US) imperialists as happened in Vietnam 20 years later. Chomsky imagines a generation from now the Iraq war may end up accomplishing the same thing in the Middle East, but Achcar stresses that's not, of course, what the US wants. For now, however, the US invasion of Iraq (and Israeli oppression of the Palestinians and Lebanese) has been a major destabilizing factor in the region and worlds away from showing any positive signs. Achcar notes that the "craziest of the (Bush) neocons" call it "creative instability" which is their nonsensical notion of "democracy" - the kind Secretary Rice calls "messy." He further notes the Bush administration has been "stupid" and "will go down in history....as the undertaker of US interests in the region." He might have added how equally destructive it's been to its stature worldwide, the state of democracy at home, and eventually for having been the prime mover for the decline and fall of the US empire along with its political and economic preeminence.

Chapter Three - Sources of US Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Moderator Stephen Shalom begins this discussion asking what are the dynamics driving US policy in the Middle East. For Chomsky and Achcar, the answer is clear:

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Oil

Chomsky explains the centrality of oil in the Middle East saying without those immense hydrocarbon reserves in the region, no one in high places would care any more about it than Antarctica. It's been almost 100 years since oil was first discovered there in what was then Persia and now is Iran. It was then discovered near ***kuk in northern Iraq in the late 1920s and in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. Most importantly, it looked even then like the region had plenty of this essential commodity, and it was easily and cheaply accessible and easy to refine. In the 1930s before WW II, the Roosevelt administration knew the Saudi reserves alone were an immense prize, wanted it for the US, and saw to it US oil companies got a foothold in the country. Chomsky explains the US's obsession with oil isn't about access to its use. It's about controlling most of the world's supply as a "lever of world domination." One way to keep European and other countries dependent on us and in sync with our policies is to maintain control of the oil spigot they're reliant on.

No country, no matter how powerful, can get that control by occupying all the others it wishes to dominate. The US knows that and prefers having a control structure like the British used when it was the leading power in the region after WW I. It's essentially the way Iraq is nominally governed today under US tutelage - an "elected" puppet facade that can't do much more than blow its nose without US approval and the intention to withdraw most US forces once a local satrap army and police can take over, which is a very dubious hope at best.

Chomsky explains the US went beyond the British model adding another structural level of control called "peripheral states" - regional gendarmes or what the Nixon administration once called "local cops on the beat" with "police headquarters in Washington and a branch (precinct) office in London." That role is now filled by Turkey and Israel and was by Iran as well during its rule under the Shah.

Achcar agrees with Chomsky and stresses oil's strategic importance in solidifying alliances with key allies like Japan and checking rivals like China and Russia (which has its own large hydrocarbon reserves). It's economic value is also immense both to US Big Oil but also to the US economy. Those factors are now playing out on a worldwide chessboard with two organizations coalescing to compete with the US for control of Central Asia's reserves - the Asian Energy Security Grid composed of China and Russia mainly and possibly India, South Korea and even Japan joining and the more significant Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) formed in 2001 for political, diplomatic, economic and security reasons as a counterweight to NATO the US dominates. It has a core China-Russia alliance in it along with most of the former Soviet republics plus Iran, Pakistan and India as observers that may lead to their eventual membership. As world powers jockey with the US for control of vital oil reserves, these alliances may figure prominently in how things eventually play out.

Central to that discussion is the next crucial point Chomsky raises. It's the issue of US withdrawal from Iraq that's now more prominent in the news than when he made his comments. He asks what happens to the country's oil under this scenario and stresses it would be an "utter catastrophe" if the US didn't leave behind a reliable client state. It's what noted and longtime Middle East journalist Robert Fisk meant when he said: "The Americans must leave (Iraq), they will leave, but they can't leave."

The country has a Shiite majority closely allied with Shiite Iran as well as with the large Saudi Shiite population in the bordering area between the two countries where most of the kingdom's oil is located. Under this scenario, Chomsky imagines what he calls Washington's "worst nightmare" - most of the Middle East oil reserves outside of US control and possibly linked to either or both of the predominant China-Russia energy and security alliances. If it happens, the decision to invade Iraq will go into the history books as one of the world's greatest ever strategic blunders and the Bush neocons will get the "credit" for it. It could put the US on a fast track to becoming a "second-class power" and be a far more serious defeat than the one suffered in Vietnam. Are echoes of "Waterloo" becoming audible?