US interest in the Middle East

A Lecture by Dr. Mohammad Reza Taheri

Yashwantrao Chawan National Center of International Security & Defense Analysis, University of Pune

30.03.2010

In order to start with "US interest in the Middle East", I have to, first of all, give you a background of exploitation. Because, our presentation today is related to the exploitation in the Middle East.

Then, I just raise some points regarding US interest in the Middle East. I mainly deal with the "Why" of the problem. Then, the meeting may be open for group discussion. These points which I am going to present will take me around 10 minutes.

Well, I believe that throughout the history we have had four phases of exploitation.

I call the first phase as the "physical exploitation by the neighbors". We can take example of Iran and India. Nader Shah Afshar the king of Iran in four hundred years ago invaded India and captured a large part of India. He took with himself the wealth such as Khoe Noor and Daryaye Noor. The point is to say that this is a traditional form of exploitation. In other words, powerful countries have always invaded other weaker countries.

Interestingly, according to some reports, I don’t know if they are correct, India has not attacked any other country in the last one hundred thousand years. If it is so, I think that India might be one of those countries which have suffered from such exploitation.

Second Phase can be called as "exploitation by the use of knowledge". For example, the British in 700 years ago had warmly invited and welcomed the scientists or inventors and absorbed them into their system. This gave them a power to control other states. They have come such a long way and exploited India. The British had the strongest navy force in the world. They ruled India for more than 150 years. They have taken away some of the most important Indian resources. So, it is a kind of exploitation.

Third Phase is called "exploitation by using the puppets". In this method, due to the common awareness on the side of the people and due to the spread of knowledge, exploitation has taken a different form. We can take example of the Middle Eastern states like Iran. It is in this age that US has joined the exploiters. I also call this as a "New Way of Exploitation". In this method, we can see fake elections. Leaders of the countries such as Iraq are at the service of the US. With regard to Iran, we may refer to the Mossadeq Prime Minister and the coup against him by the Shah of Iran who had the support of the US. In this form, the puppets exploit their own people for the interest of the superpowers.

Fourth Phase can be called as "exploitation with the help of democracy". Big powers help the failed states to practice democracy at home. We can refer to the recent elections in Iraq for example. In this way, politicians are being elected by the people of their own countries, but they have to abide by the rules and regulations of big powers.

Well, as far as the US interest in the Middle East is concerned, we can say that US is using the fourth phase of exploitation. Close to 70% of natural resource like oil exist in the Middle East. According to the American experts, till one hundred years more in the future, oil can play a very important role for the development of the powerful countries. For this reason, US plans to have a strong hold in the Middle East. In order to justify her presence in the Middle East, US always tries to use "democracy and human rights issues."

Thus, its presence in the Middle East is to preserve and control the natural resources in the region, as well as, to pave the way for the American companies to exploit the existing resources by trading and helping the economy of the US.

US is expanding its presence in the Middle East because of China's influence and India's growing power. Both China and India will need these resources. Thus, US wants to prevent China and India from reaching the Middle East resources. There is a saying that whosoever gets Middle East in its control, it has almost the whole world in control.

Issues such as human rights in other countries does not matter much for the US, these things matters for the national interest of the US itself, as we see that a life of a common American is very important for American government, but lives of innocent people in countries like Iraq does not have any importance.

Finally, US always needs a rival in the region to exploit that region. The same is true with the Middle East. Once they had USSR, and today they have Alqaeda, which has been created by US itself.

I believe that indirectly US has been responsible for the 9/11 attacks. It was a pretext to make US more active in the Middle East. We have one theory in Economics which says that "how much you spend" and how much is your benefit" We can relate this to the 9/11 incident and post 9/11 period in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Thank You

A Lecture by Dr. Mohammad Reza Taheri at the Yashwantrao Chawan National Center of International Security & Defense Analysis, University of Pune, on  30.03.2010. www.mrtaheri.org

published by Baloch Academist www.balochacademy.org