Re: Greg Johnson on dropping the alliance with Israel

From: Mike Linksvayer (ml@gondwanaland.com)
Date: Sun Sep 16 2001 - 00:50:31 MDT


On Sun, Sep 16, 2001 at 12:34:33AM -0500, Barbara Lamar wrote:
> Mike Linksvayer wrote:
> > But Israel has no oil. Does the US alliance with Israel help
> > maintain access to Middle Eastern countries that do have oil?
>
> Yes.

Perhaps I'm just stupid, but how? AFAIK Israel doesn't include
access to Middle Eastern oil among its priorities. Israel has more
than enough other military/diplomatic concerns, and appears to have
written off the region as a source for itself entirely, importing
from Mexico, Norway, and the UK says
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/israel.html. The US hasn't used
Israel as a base from which to attack countries that refuse to sell
or raise the price of oil. Is there an implicit threat to do so?
If so, why didn't we when OPEC was strong, or during the gulf war?
Israel isn't even all that close the the main oil fields. Jordan
and a bunch of desert lies between. The Persian Gulf offers much
better access should the US wish to force producers to sell at a
price we set.
 
> > If
> > oil is the objective, it'd be simpler to pay off/befriend Saudi
> > Arabia and Kuwait than to ally with Israel.
>
> They are not reliable allies.

Not a problem. They don't all have to be friendly at the same time.
I'd guess among Persian Gulf area oil producers, Kuwait is currently
most friendly to the US, Iraq the least. Doesn't matter if that
gets shuffled. It's all oil. If oilless allies in the region help
somehow, there's also Turkey.

> > Israel is able to defend itself quite nicely.
>
> I don't believe it's ever had to defend itself without US support.

They've mostly managed on their own. What has the US provided
apart from money and intelligence? (We provide hardware to everyone
in the region.) US and Israeli troops have never fought together.
 
> > Why would all of the Persian Gulf region countries stop selling
> > oil unless we really, really pissed them off?
>
> They wouldn't have to merely stop. They could create major problems by
> simply raising prices. Bin Laden has stated in a 1997 interview with ABC
> news that it is his intent, should he ever gain the power to do so, to raise
> the price of oil substantially.
[...]

Bin Laden doesn't have the power. He doesn't control Afganistan,
let alone the entire Middle East. He'd have to bring down every
existing government in the Middle East to obtain that power. The
only thing the US has to fear regarding access to oil is that Bin
Laden's ideology overtakes all of the major oil producing states.
That isn't going to happen without plenty of help from the US.

-- 
  Mike Linksvayer
  http://gondwanaland.com/ml/



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