“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents”

- General Smedley Butler

64% of the world’s proven oil reserves lie in the Persian Gulf region.

The oil producing states are a gold mine, not only from oil itself, but also from the arms their oil rich monarchies purchase from the USA, plus their investments in land, hotels, and other enterprises in the West.

It makes a difference if oil profit is spent on American arms, or invested in New York hotels, as with that of Saudi Arabia, or if it is ploughed into internal development (the case with Iraq and Iran).

Sanctions, the UN imposed outlawing of trade with Iraq, have, in recent years, been increasingly flouted, principally by French, Russian and Chinese companies. Foreign oil contracts worth $ 1.1 trillion were made by the Hussein regime in the last decade. Effectively leaving American corporates out in the cold. A powerful impetus for “regime change”.

The world’s oil is traded in dollars, helping to make the dollar the world’s most important currency. Much of the world’s central bank reserves are held in dollars. This gives the USA the ability to survive the sort of trade deficit (i.e. to import far more than is exported) and national debt that elsewhere would cause a massive currency devaluation. However parts of OPEC ,– the consortium of oil producing states (including Iraq), have moved to the Euro, others are considering doing so. Control of Iraqi oil is a means of breaking OPEC before it moves over to Euro.

“For globalisation to work, America can’t be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell-Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technology is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.”

- New York Times