Mission Accomplished?

The seizure of Iraq is widely perceived to be have been a blunder. From the strategic standpoint of the US elites it was no such thing. The oil reserves contained within Iraq are gigantic, and thus its acquisition was a major economic and security leap forward for the United States. In this piece, a compelling case is made for U.S. Global hegemony. Please go read the entire article, it's lengthy but well worthwhile.

According to their logic the US elites have good reason to feel pleased with themselves following the successful takeover of Iraq, even if the general public in the United States is unable at this stage to grasp what a "glorious achievement" it is. Iraq is known to have over 100 billion barrels of oil reserves. In addition to this the country is still relatively unexplored and there are an estimated 200 to 300 billion barrels more waiting to be discovered. Given that this is largely light crude, the most valuable type of oil, it doesn't take much effort of the imagination to figure that US forces have seized control of one of the world's greatest treasures, whose value dwarfs the cost of the invasion. The invasion of Iraq would therefore be a strong contender for an entry in the Guinness World Records as the greatest act of piracy in the history of the world. It makes the exploits of Blackbeard and Captain Jack Sparrow look decidedly tame. With this being election year in the US, various politicians try to curry favor with the voters by talking about "bringing the troops home". So let's be clear about this - the troops are not coming home until the infrastructure has been built to fully exploit Iraq oil resources, and to this end to partition off the local population who might otherwise interfere with production. In fact, a background level of violence is actually desirable at this time, in order to provide the excuse to keep the troops there. We should also not overlook the reality that the US elections are pure spin anyway, a charade. The United States is not a democracy and has not been for a long time. Its political system is a duopoly of power, with the same plutocratic forces controlling both the Democrat and Republican parties, the election being a 4-yearly circus to fool the masses into thinking that they live in a democracy. In one sense democracy is an absurd concept anyway - how can you allow ignorant, uneducated people the same vote as intelligent, discriminating people? The answer is that that you can - and then you program them to do what you want them to anyway via their favorite entertainment and media inputs. If you spend an hour of your time going down to the polling station to vote, you have just wasted an hour of your life, except that it can be amusing to watch the other fools wasting their time lining up - thinking that they are going to make a difference.

Complete control of the Mid-East, which the United States and the major oil companies are now close to having achieved, of course confers massive power over the rest of world, in particular over rising economic powers such as China and India and the immense leverage that this will in time afford can be used to steer these countries in whatever direction is desired. The US is believed to be involved in a strategic race against time to corner the bulk of the world's remaining oil reserves, the control of which can then be used to dissuade countries like China from resorting to the wholesale dumping of dollars or US Treasuries, along the lines of "Try it and we'll cut off your oil supply", which one would expect to be couched in more diplomatic language. Because of its gargantuan levels of debt the US is acutely vulnerable now, but with time it plans to tip the scales back in its favor partly by sales of its recently acquired plunder. Anyone who has watched those David Attenborough nature programs about seal colonies on beaches will know that the US is like the "beach master", the huge bull elephant seal, taking possession of all of the females on the beach and jealously guarding them, while China and Russia are the other strong contenders, who don't quite have the strength or size to try to assert dominance and as a result can only make gains when the beach master suffers some drastic reversal of fortune. The irony is that China now has the power to stop the US in its tracks, by dumping its vast dollar and Treasury holdings, which would send the US economy straight over a cliff, but it is unlikely it will do this because it can't stomach the consequences to itself or its people of doing so.

It's a dazzling assessment of the geostrategic current state. Fundamentally, it's about the consolidation of power rather than an increase in the wealth of the nation, much less the world. Furthermore, it is very consistent with the logic and history of TEP intrigues. You be the judge...,