[News] Iraq, Palestine, and U.S. Imperialism

[News at freedomarchives.org]

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Iraq, Palestine, and U.S. Imperialism
BY TOUFIC HADDAD
International Socialist Review, Issue 36, July-August 2004, 19 pages
<http://www.isreview.org/issues/36/toufic.shtml>http://www.isreview.org/issues/36/toufic.shtml

Toufic Haddad is a Palestinian-American activist and writer who edits the 
radical journal Between The Lines, published from Jerusalem and Ramallah. 
He is also a frequent contributor to the International Socialist Review and 
ZNet. He can be reached at toufic_haddad at hotmail.com.

THE U.S. antiwar movement recently adopted the issue of Palestine as a 
point of unity, prominently declaring that on March 20, 2004, protesters 
across America would march beneath the banner, "End colonial occupations 
from Iraq to Palestine to everywhere." This came in large part as a result 
of a letter addressed to the broader antiwar community on behalf of Arab 
and Muslim organizations announcing that these groups would no longer 
accept the de-linking of Palestine and the occupation of Iraq in the U.S. 
antiwar movement. The statement declared that the struggle in Palestine 
must be "central to any peace and justice mobilization."1

However, the letter is notably vague about the relationship between the 
struggles in Palestine and Iraq beyond proclamations that "both peoples 
have paid dearly in confronting war and occupation." This article seeks to 
clarify what indeed are the connections between the Palestinian and Iraqi 
struggles, situating both within the framework of current U.S. imperial 
objectives. This is necessary because both occupations are key components 
of the U.S. Middle East strategy. The American ruling establishment has 
already invested billions of dollars in both, and has shown a willingness 
to sacrifice the lives of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The U.S.-funded Israeli 
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been underway for almost 
thirty-seven years, and has cost U.S. taxpayers around $5 billion a year. 
As for Iraq, top U.S. officials have no qualms about declaring the 
occupation––the cost of which is already running into the hundreds of 
billions––a long-term endeavor. As former occupation chief in Iraq General 
Jay Garner [Ret.] recently put it, "One of the most important things we can 
do right now is start getting basing rights.

 Look back on the Philippines 
around the turn of the 20th century. They were a coaling station for the 
Navy.

 That's what Iraq is for the next few decades: our coaling station 
that gives us great presence in the Middle East."2

Understanding how Iraq and Palestine fit together is made all the more 
important by the fact that after September 11, and the more recent U.S. 
occupation of Iraq, the architecture of U.S. imperial policies has entered 
a significant new era that Bush administration officials are heralding as 
the advent of "a new Middle East." Though the classic U.S. imperial 
objectives in the region remain unchanged, new methods and tactics are 
being devised to consolidate these objectives, which in part are aimed at 
addressing both old and new structural weaknesses and threats to U.S. 
hegemony. Clarification of these issues is thus of utmost necessity so 
activists know best how to strategize and focus their energies for the task 
at hand.

 From Iraq to Palestine: Similarities

On one level, the comparison between the occupations is straightforward. 
Indeed, all occupying armies, if their occupations are to last, must 
inevitably develop certain techniques of "counter-insurgency." But there is 
more than coincidence in the techniques both the Israeli and U.S. occupying 
armies are using to suppress popular resistance. U.S. techniques in Iraq 
are unmistakably similar to Israeli techniques in the 1967 Occupied 
Territories because of the active cooperation between Israeli military 
advisers and the Americans on the ground. It is worth mentioning some of 
these common techniques while not forgetting the terribly destructive 
effect they have on the daily lives of Iraqis and Palestinians. They 
include: the use of aggressive techniques of urban warfare with an emphasis 
on special units, house-to-house searches, wide-scale arrest campaigns 
(almost 14,000 Iraqis are now in prison), and torture; the erecting of an 
elaborate system of watchtowers, military bases, checkpoints, barbed wire, 
and trenches to monitor, control, and restrict transportation and movement; 
the clearing of wide swaths of land next to roads; the use of armored 
bulldozers to destroy the houses of suspected militants; the razing of 
entire fields from which militants might seek refuge; the heightened 
relevance of snipers and unmanned drones; and the attempted erection of 
collaborator networks to extract information from the local population 
about resistance activities––both military and political.

Indeed, the techniques Israel has developed over the years in suppressing 
Palestinian resistance, and most recently in urban warfare throughout the 
course of the Al Aqsa Intifada, have proven invaluable for many states 
attempting to crush insurrections––Colombia (leftist guerrillas), Turkey 
(Kurds), India (Kashmir), Sri Lanka (Tamil liberation movements), and 
Indonesia (East Timor), to name just a few. The U.S., anxious to rid itself 
of the hangover of the "Vietnam syndrome," and more recently the "Somalia 
syndrome," value this expertise just as highly. Cooperation in urban 
warfare techniques with Israeli military generals both on the logistic 
level and on the ground in Israeli training camps pre-dates the most recent 
Iraq campaign. For example, a detailed lecture on urban warfare is featured 
by Brigadier General Gideon Avidor in a Rand Corporation publication 
entitled "Ready for Armageddon" in which other top military brass (both 
U.S. and international) seek to learn from the Israeli experiences of urban 
warfare. As the Iraqi occupation continues, increasing evidence of this 
cooperation is surfacing. Pulitzer prize winning author Seymour Hersh of 
the New Yorker magazine writes, "According to American and Israeli military 
and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have 
been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces 
training base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Israel to help them 
prepare for operations in Iraq." One of the operations formulated with the 
"ad-hoc Israeli commandos advisers" is "called 'pre-emptive manhunting' by 
one Pentagon adviser" and has "the potential to turn into another Phoenix 
Program"––a reference to the counter-insurgency program the U.S. adopted 
during the Vietnam War, in which Special Forces were sent out to capture or 
assassinate Vietnamese believed to be working with or sympathetic to the 
Vietcong. Operation Phoenix resulted in the killing of at least 60,000 
victims between 1968 and 1972.3

The similarity between the two occupations isn't limited to one of mere 
technique, but also includes the way in which U.S. actions are framed and 
justified. As Palestinian thinker (and Israeli member of Parliament) Azmi 
Bishara has noted, the "war against terror" and particularly the recent 
invasion of Iraq was waged using the logic of "globalized Israeli security 
doctrines. For example, 'the pre-emptive strike' or the 'preventative war.' 
These conceptions are actually Israeli conceptions, including understanding 
'terrorism' as the 'main enemy.'" Bishara explains, "Israel's central 
doctrine was to divide the world into 'terrorists' and 
'anti-terrorists'

so that it could be on the side of Russia, India and the 
United States together. 'Everybody is fighting terrorism.' This enables 
Israel to break its isolation. Israel is on one side, the entire Arab world 
is on the other."4

Important differences: Palestine and the inadequacy of terminology

Despite all these similarities, it is important to understand that 
differences exist. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is by no means a carbon copy 
of Israeli practices against the Palestinians. Each occupation plays a 
different role in U.S. imperial objectives. Moreover, limiting the 
discussion to occupation does a disservice to what is actually taking place 
in both cases, and obfuscates the clarity needed for real action.

To start with, the word "occupation" is commonly used to refer to the 
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that began in 1967. Though 
Palestinians actively resist this occupation (and have since it started), 
they also actively reject the limiting of their cause to the question of 
this occupation alone. In fact, the Palestinian national liberation 
movement began in the Ottoman era (pre——First World War) and crystallized 
in the years of the British mandate (1920——1948). The modern national 
movement (embodied in the Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO) was 
established in 1964––three years before the 1967 occupation, and began as a 
movement of refugees, expelled by Zionist armies from Palestine in 1948, 
who sought to lead the return of the Palestinian people back to their lands 
and homes. The word "occupation," in this instance, bears no reference to 
the Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 
1948 in which 530 Palestinian cities, towns, and villages were depopulated. 
Nor does it shed any light on the nature of the Zionist movement or the 
exclusive Jewish state it established, which is discriminatory and racist 
by its very nature against non-Jews. Furthermore, occupation bears no 
reference to the struggle of the more than one million Palestinians inside 
Israel who are citizens of the state, and who today are at the very heart 
of the anti-Zionist struggle, as the non-Jews in the Jewish state 
struggling for equality and their national collective rights as the 
indigenous people of Palestine.

In fact, occupation has become a very slippery word used for disingenuous 
political purposes. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Likud 
Central Committee on May 27, 2003, "I also believe that the thought and 
idea that we can continue keeping under occupation––we might not like the 
word, but it is occupation––3.5 million Palestinians, is very bad for 
Israel, the Palestinians and Israel's economy."5 Likewise, Shimon Peres and 
Benjamin Netanyahu both proclaimed during the Oslo years that Israel no 
longer occupied the Palestinians. Their claim was that the direct 
occupation of Palestinians by the Israeli army was over (because of 
Palestinian Authority, or PA, autonomy in "Area A" during Oslo) or needed 
to end, but without mentioning the occupation of Palestinian land.

Thus it is evident that the term "anti-occupation" is a political catechism 
that cannot be allowed to go unqualified if it is to be used in defense of 
Palestinian rights. This is the precise mistake large parts of the European 
Left have made vis-àà-vis the Palestinian struggle, and the American Left 
must be careful not to fall into this same trap. This has come about 
largely as a result of them taking the lead from the Zionist Left which 
forms the Israeli "peace camp" (and includes groups from the more 
"establishment" Meretz Party and Peace Now movement, to the more "radical" 
Gush Shalom and Women in Black).

The Zionist Left's critique of Israel and the occupation is limited to 
Israeli practices only after 1967. It categorically rejects the Palestinian 
refugees' right of return (which has been passed by the UN General Assembly 
more than 110 times since 1948). Furthermore, the Zionist Left has no 
intention of raising the question of the racist and discriminatory nature 
of Zionism, the formation of the Israeli state, or for that matter, even 
the recognition of the rights and struggles of the Palestinian citizens of 
Israel. This misleading line taken by the Zionist Left, or rather its 
intentional gerrymandering of the "problem," is made worse by the 
negotiating tactics of the Palestinian Authority, which has promoted an 
approach that only focuses on the 1967 occupation.

This ambiguity surrounding the term "occupation," and its use to obscure 
what is at the heart of the Palestinian struggle, has been terribly 
destructive to the Palestinian cause. In fact, it was precisely the 
illusion that the problem was the occupation and that the "occupation was 
ending" during the Oslo "peace process" between 1993 and 2000 that allowed 
much of the international community to absolve itself of responsibility to 
the Palestinian cause, at a time when in fact the Israeli occupation was 
deepening. The present Intifada arose as a rejection of both the occupation 
and the falsity that a peace process was taking place.

Limiting criticism of Israel to the occupation continues to be a disservice 
to describing what is happening to Palestinians both in the West Bank and 
inside Israel. Since the Al Aqsa Intifada began at least 3,000 Palestinians 
have been killed (as of the writing of this article), of whom more than 550 
are children and 200 are women, while 310 have been killed in political 
assassinations. Almost 39,000 Palestinians have been wounded, and more than 
6,000 are in prison (437 of whom are children). More than 5,100 homes have 
been completely destroyed and an additional 55,119 have been damaged. 
Forty-three schools alone have been transformed into military bases. More 
than 15,000 acres of land have been leveled, 982,000 trees uprooted, 12,848 
sheep and goats killed or poisoned, and 257 water wells destroyed 
completely. If we compare in scale the American population of 280 million 
to the Palestinian population of three million––a ratio of about 93:1––you 
begin to get a sense of the enormity of devastation taking place. As a 
proportion of their total population, four times the number of Palestinians 
have died than Americans were killed in Vietnam.

This is to say nothing of the 370 kilometers of wall that Israel is 
erecting around the West Bank. In fact, the wall is a series of 
8-meter-high concrete slabs, electric fences, trenches, barbed-wire, patrol 
roads, and tracking paths. Its ultimate purpose is to enforce what Israel 
terms "demographic separation," while unilaterally annexing large swaths of 
Palestinian land and water to Israel. Architects of the wall seek to 
consolidate the long-held Zionist plan of establishing separate islands of 
Palestinian autonomy similar to the South African Bantustans on no more 
than 40 percent of the West Bank––a plan both Labor and Likud governments 
have been united in implementing since the 1967 occupation began.

The 1948 Palestinians (who are citizens of Israel) have also witnessed a 
sustained assault against their livelihood. They too were brutally 
repressed at the outbreak of the Intifada, with the Israeli police killing 
thirteen of them before demonstrations in solidarity with their brethren in 
1967 Palestine were quelled. Their second-class status also means that they 
are subject to having their land confiscated, and their houses demolished 
without recourse for the purpose of erecting Jewish-only settlements. They 
have already had 97 percent of their land confiscated from them, and they 
are unable to purchase land that is now owned by Jewish Israelis due to 
sophisticated state laws that discriminate against Arab ownership of land. 
Furthermore, not a day goes by in Israel when Israeli politicians don't 
refer to them––not the 1967 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza––as the 
existential threat Israel faces, the so-called "demographic time bomb." 
During the course of the Intifada, Israel has accelerated its attempts to 
ghettoize them, too. It is presently engaged in trying to force 70,000 
Palestinians who live in unrecognized villages in the south of the country 
by spraying their crops with defoliants. Israel has also issued demolition 
orders against more than 6,000 homes of Palestinian citizens of Israel, 
claiming the homes were built "illegally."

What the limited framework of occupation fails to capture is that Israel is 
presently engaged in an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people, 
located across historical Palestine. At minimum, this plan aims to erect an 
overt form of apartheid, and in the worst-case scenario, could result in 
"transfer" (the Israeli expression used for ethnic cleansing)––be it by 
force (i.e., physical expulsion at gunpoint), or "willful" (by preventing 
access by Palestinians to the necessities of life––health care, education, 
work, water, food, family, etc.), forcing people to leave.

Israel in the service of U.S. imperialism

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, the inadequacy of the term 
"occupation" is made clear not only vis-àà-vis what is taking place on the 
ground in Palestine (the micro level), but also vis-àà-vis what Israel's 
historic and present day role has been in relation to Western imperialism 
(the macro level).

Israel's role, in the words of founding Zionist thinker Theodore Hertzl in 
1896, is to be "a bulwark against Asia

an advance post of civilization 
against barbarism."6 All Zionist leaders from the pre-state days to the 
present have understood that loyalty to the objectives of Western 
imperialism would guarantee support to the state, and domination over the 
Arab world. Co-founder of the World Zionist Organization Max Nordau 
explicitly declared this in a July 12, 1920 speech delivered at Albert Hall 
in London. Describing the event, Nordau writes:

On stage were Mr. Balfour, Marquise Carew, Lord Robert Cecil, members of 
the British Cabinet, MPs, and Politicians.

 I turned to the Ministers and 
said: During a dangerous moment in the World War you thought that we, the 
Jews, could render you a useful service. You turned to us, making promises 
that were rather general but could be considered satisfactory. [This is a 
reference to Lord Balfour's declaration promising the creation of a Jewish 
state in Palestine in 1917——T.H.] We considered your views and were loyal 
towards your proposals. We only want to continue. We made a pact with you. 
We consider carefully the dangers and commitments of this pact. We know 
what you hope to receive from us. We must protect the Suez Canal for you. 
We shall be the guards of your road to India as it passes through the 
Middle East. We are ready to fulfill this difficult military role but this 
requires that you permit us to become powerful so as to be able to fulfill 
our role. Loyalty for loyalty, faithfulness in return for faithfulness.7

After the 1967 war, U.S. imperialism replaced Britain and France as 
Israel's backer. But the nature of this relationship and of Israel's role 
has never changed, but rather has expanded to include not only the 
protection of the Suez Canal, but most importantly, the protection of 
Western access to Middle East oil. As the establishment Israeli daily paper 
Haaretz wrote,

Israel is to become the watchdog. There is no fear that Israel will 
undertake any aggressive policy towards the Arab states when this would 
explicitly contradict the wishes of the U.S. and Britain. But, if for any 
reasons the western powers should sometimes prefer to close their eyes, 
Israel could be relied upon to punish one or several neighboring states 
whose discourtesy to the west went beyond the bounds of the permissible.8

Israel's principle purpose––indeed its specialization––has been to subvert, 
suppress, uproot, and destroy the forces of Arab nationalism to secure 
Western access to Arab oil, once described by Washington as "the greatest 
prize in human history." Arab nationalism was and continues to be such a 
threat to the interests of Western imperialism, because it is the sole 
force that calls for the self-determination of the Arab peoples and their 
natural resources, thus threatening to call into question the false 
divisions created by Western imperialism which divided the Arab peoples 
into twenty-two states at the beginning of the twentieth century.

In this endeavor Israel has worked tirelessly. Though its most striking and 
best known accomplishment was its surprise attack and defeat of the 
Pan-Arab movement of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1967––a demoralizing defeat that 
the Arab world has yet to recover from––this is only the tip of the iceberg 
of what Israel has undertaken to do away with any and all traces of the 
Arab national movement. It is worth here briefly mentioning some of this 
expansive and elaborate policy, as it is rarely given due exposure.

Since its creation, Israel has engaged and defeated different Arab regimes 
in major wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982. In all cases, with the 
exception of 1973, Israel initiated the attacks. Israel has consistently 
supported non-Arab states on the periphery of the Arab world in Turkey, 
Iran, Kenya, and Ethiopia as a way to make sure that Arab states engage in 
resource expenditure and defense against their neighbors. This is known in 
Israeli "defense" lexicon as "Encirclement Theory."

Israel has consistently supported both ethnic and religious minorities 
within the Arab world, as a way to break down Arab nationalism from within 
(known in Israeli lexicon as the "Theory of Allying the Periphery"). It 
first targeted Arab Jews (particularly in Iraq, Egypt, and Morocco), even 
going so far as to plant bombs in synagogues and on Jewish-owned property 
to provoke a wave of Arab Jewish immigration to Israel in the early 1950s.9 
Israel has also attempted to foment the rebellions of other minority groups 
in Egypt (the Copts), Lebanon (the Maronites), Iraq (the Kurds), and Sudan 
(Christians in the south) as a way of weakening Arab nationalism. Israel 
even refuses to recognize the Arab nationality of the more than one million 
Arab citizens of Israel, instead officially registering them as Muslims, 
Christians, and Druze.

Israel has come to the aid of pro-Western Arab regimes, helping them defend 
themselves from internal Arab nationalist movements. The most well-known 
example of this is that of Jordan in 1970, when Israel threatened to 
intervene to shore up the Jordanian monarchy in its attempts to suppress 
the PLO. The Syrian army thought to put a stop to the massacre of 
Palestinians by the Jordanian regime, but opted not to because of Israel's 
threat that it would bomb Damascus. But this is not the only case of Israel 
supporting a reactionary Arab regime to put down the forces of Arab 
nationalism. Former head of the Israeli Mossad, Shabtai Shavit explicitly 
confirmed that Israel supported royalist forces in Yemen in their war 
against republican forces throughout the 1960s. The Israeli aid consisted 
of parachuting weapons to royalist forces and sending instructors to train 
them. The Israeli motivation was the desire to weaken Egypt's Gamal Abdel 
Nasser who supported the republican forces. As Haaretz noted: "The Pan-Arab 
project of Nasser threatened the rule of Imperialism in the region and, as 
Shavit explains: 'We did it in order to be able to struggle against the 
worst of our enemies.' Moreover, the interference in the civil war [in 
Yemen] was part of a comprehensive strategic perception of the Mossad which 
endeavored to divide the Arab world and find allies in the region."10

Israel has directly and indirectly been involved in the assassination of 
prominent and progressive Arab nationalists for years, including senior 
Moroccan revolutionary Mehdi Ben Barakeh in 1967, leaders and members of 
the National Liberation Front in Algeria, as well as dozens of prominent 
revolutionaries in the Lebanese and Palestinian national movements.

Israel has worked closely to prevent any Arab regime from challenging its 
military advantage and hegemony in the Middle East, particularly seeking to 
prevent the Arabs from developing nuclear capabilities. Israel destroyed 
the Iraqi reactor during its assembly in France in 1977, and assassinated 
an assortment of scientists who worked in the Iraqi nuclear program––most 
notably the Egyptian scientist Yahya El Mashd, in Paris. Israel also 
assassinated the brainchild of the Iraqi Super Cannon project in Brussels, 
and bombed the Osiraq Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

Israel has repeatedly attempted to weaken or destroy the Palestinian 
national movement––particularly in 1970 in Gaza, 1982 in Lebanon, 1987 in 
the first Intifada, and most recently in the current Al Aqsa Intifada, 
which began in September 2000. More than any other movement, the 
Palestinian national movement has collectively symbolized and united Arab 
nationalist aspirations, and has acted until recently as the main front of 
Western imperialism's attacks and control of Arab nationalism.

Israel's relentless war against Arab nationalism has made it an 
indispensable ally of the U.S., far and above the value of any pro-Western 
Arab proxy regime, regimes whose instability derives from their 
illegitimacy in the eyes of their own people. For these reasons, American 
military expert––Major General George Keegan and former air force 
intelligence officer––has been quoted as saying that it would cost U.S. 
taxpayers $125 billion to maintain an armed force equal to Israel's in the 
Middle East, and that the U.S.-Israel military relationship was worth "five 
CIAs."11

Current Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalon recently confirmed the 
strategic significance of Israel for U.S. objectives in the Middle East, in 
an interview he gave to Charlie Rose on PBS.

I think the friendship with Israel is helping the United States, not less 
that it's helping us, because we are sharing so many things in common. We 
are not sharing only information and intelligence.

 We have been working 
together for so many years, and I believe that we are protecting the 
interests of the United States in our region. Just try to imagine if Israel 
did not exist. If Israel was not there, what would happen in this region 
with this hostility towards the United States and towards the values that 
it represents? When we are there, we are not letting those extremists, 
those fanatics to focus only on the Americans: they [the fanatics] have to 
do it with us. I believe that while we are there we are helping very much 
the Americans not less than they are helping us. It is mutual interest of 
both our countries and our peoples.12

Iraq, oil, empire

Having established Israel's role as the protector of Western, primarily 
U.S., imperial objectives, it is easier to determine how and where the 
recent invasion and occupation of Iraq fits into place. Deputy Defense 
Minister Paul Wolfowitz himself acknowledged to delegates at an Asian 
security summit in Singapore in June 2003 that the invasion of Iraq had 
nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. When asked why the nuclear 
power of North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, Wolfowitz 
commented: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between 
North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. 
The country swims on a sea of oil."13

Of course it is no secret that oil is at the heart of the occupation's 
objectives. American and world dependence on Gulf oil will increase 
precipitously over the next twenty years. Veteran Middle East analyst 
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies 
(CSIS)––well connected to the U.S. intelligence community––describes this 
dependency in a document written before the occupation of Iraq:

We need to remember what our key strategic priorities are. The U.S. is 
steadily more dependent on a global economy and the global economy is 
steadily more dependent on Middle Eastern energy exports, particularly from 
the Gulf. We tend to take this so much for granted that we sometimes fail 
to consider just how serious this dependence is and how much it is 
estimated to grow in the future. There also is still a tendency to view the 
issue in terms of American import dependence, our normal peacetime 
dependence on given countries for imports, and dependence on direct 
imports. These are all false approaches to the problem. We are steadily 
more dependent on global imports; what affects the global economy affects 
us and our direct level of oil imports is no measure of strategic dependence.
Similarly, we compete for oil on a world market. Any shortage or price rise 
in a crisis forces us to compete for imports on the same basis as every 
other nation. Finally, focusing on direct imports of oil ignores the fact 
that the U.S. has steadily shifted the pattern of its manufactured imports 
to include energy dependent goods, particularly from Asia. These, in turn, 
are produced by economies that are critically dependent on oil imported 
from the Middle East. Estimates of import dependence that only include 
direct imports of crude understate our true net dependence on oil imports 
to the point where they are analytically absurd.14

In this regard, Iraq's possession of the second largest oil reserves in the 
world (with prospects for more), its weakened position after twelve years 
of sanctions, and the openings for the U.S. created after the September 11 
attacks and subsequent "war on terror," all made the invasion of Iraq a 
strategic necessity. As the Gulf's share of worldwide petroleum exports 
increases to almost 60 percent by 2020, the U.S. has perceived the need to 
keep these strategic reserves in a strong U.S. grip––to ensure not only 
American access to oil, but also U.S. domination and leverage over 
potential European and Chinese competitors, and over world oil markets as a 
whole. Securing Iraq's oil thus represents a lynchpin of U.S. imperial 
objectives. These objectives were summed up well by Paul Wolfowitz as early 
as 1992: The U.S. "must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any 
potential future global competitor

. [W]e must maintain the mechanism for 
deterring potential competitors even aspiring to a larger regional or 
global role."15

 From Iraq to remolding the entire Middle East

The fact that the U.S. now occupies one of the Arab world's largest and 
most historically influential countries positions it well to not only 
control Iraq's oil resources but also to remold the entire region as it 
sees fit. Bush recently declared in his weekly radio address, "The 
establishment of a free Iraq will be a watershed event in the history of 
the Middle East, helping to advance the spread of liberty throughout that 
vital region

as freedom takes hold in the greater Middle East, the people 
of the region will find new hope, and America will be more secure."16

Details of what precisely the Bush administration has meant by its version 
of a new Middle East have been noticeably vague beyond the predictable 
rehashed "white man's burden" rhetoric about bringing freedom and democracy 
to the people of the region. But based on what the U.S. is doing in Iraq, 
together with other ongoing trends and phenomena in the region, it is now 
becoming clearer as to what precisely the U.S. has in mind. These plans are 
aimed at addressing both old and new structural weaknesses and threats to 
this hegemony, which are increasingly likely to reveal themselves in the 
post-invasion of Iraq Middle East.

The Middle East: Legacy of imperialism and _of democracy denied

For some time, the Middle East has been a veritable cauldron of economic, 
social, and political discontent for the Arab working classes, particularly 
within the U.S.-backed Arab regimes (Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt, and 
the entire Gulf region which includes Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, 
the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, in addition to Yemen). Many of these 
problems were more publicly exposed after the publication of the 2002 and 
2003 UN Human Development Reports on the Arab world. These reports, written 
by prominent Arab scholars and academics, reveal how far down the corrupt 
regimes of the Middle East have driven their peoples.

Of nine world regions surveyed, the Arab world topped the list of those 
populations who most supported the statement that "democracy is better than 
any other form of government," and expressed the highest level of rejection 
of authoritarian rule. The UN report is rife with shocking examples of 
where the negligence, corruption, and despotism of the Arab regimes has 
led: The combined gross domestic product of the twenty-two Arab League 
countries is less than that of Spain. Approximately 40 percent of adult 
Arabs––sixty-five million people––are illiterate (two-thirds of whom are 
women). If current unemployment rates persist, regional unemployment will 
reach twenty-five million by 2010, representing at least 15 percent in most 
Arab countries. Investment in research and development is less than 
one-seventh of the world average. Fifty-one percent of older Arab youths 
expressed a desire to emigrate to other countries. The Arab world already 
suffers from a "hemorrhaging" of large numbers of qualified Arab 
professionals who emigrate to the West in search of job opportunities. 
Roughly 25 percent of the 300,000 graduates from Arab universities in 
1995——1996 emigrated, and more than 15,000 Arab doctors emigrated between 
1998 and 2000 alone.

U.S. think tanks for years have been warning of increasing "troubling 
trends" throughout the Middle East, which if allowed to fester for too long 
could be potentially explosive. But their concern is not with what has been 
done to the peoples of the Middle East, but rather the impact of these 
trends on U.S. hegemony in the region and on global markets as a whole. In 
a remarkable series of documents published by CSIS entitled "Peace is Not 
Enough,"17 Anthony Cordesman outlines how these issues simply cannot be 
ignored. These issues include "massive economic and demographic problems" 
whereby "no Arab country has economic growth that solidly outpaces its rise 
in population"; "Population momentum rates" that "represent a major threat" 
requiring "massive birth control programs" (referred to as the "Population 
Momentum Bomb"); "Gross over-population and over-urbanization" which may 
become "critical threats by 2010——2030"; "Extremely high under and 
un-employment" which create "a generation with nowhere to go"; and a "Youth 
Explosion Problem" whereby over 40 percent of the population is 14 years or 
younger." In the era of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Cordesman raises these 
issues because they will increasingly threaten the stability of U.S.-backed 
regimes across an Arab world which is incensed about U.S. imperial policies 
in the region––particularly its backing of Arab dictatorships, its support 
for Israel, and the brutal Iraq occupation.

The economic fist behind the military glove

The U.S. also has other incentives behind rearranging the economic, 
political, and social landscape of the Arab world: neoliberalism. As one 
analyst from the Cato Institute Daniel T. Griswold bemoans, "The Arab world 
is a land that globalization has largely passed by," suffering from an 
isolation that "is largely self-imposed. Average tariff barriers in the 
Arab Middle East are among the highest in the world, and as a consequence 
the region suffers from chronically declining shares of global trade and 
investment."18

Over the past two decades, the Middle East's share of world trade has 
fallen from 13.5 percent in 1980, to less than 3.4 percent in 2000. 
Similarly, foreign direct investment in the Arab world has also steadily 
declined during this period, going from 2.6 percent of the world total in 
1975——1980, to only 0.7 percent during 1990——1998.19 Average tariffs in 
Algeria are 24 percent, 30 percent in Tunisia, and more than 20 percent in 
Egypt––much higher than the average tariffs in the United States, which 
hover around 4 percent. Griswold's solution is predictably clear: "Free 
trade is not a panacea, but it is a necessary building block for a more 
peaceful and prosperous Middle East. Free trade has helped to reduce 
poverty in those countries and regions of the world that have progressively 
opened themselves to the global economy. Free trade can till the soil for 
democracy and respect for human rights by creating an economically 
independent and growing middle class."

It is with this underlying framework that U.S. policy wonks are approaching 
the post-invasion of Iraq Middle East, with the expressed intention of 
"draining the swamp" according to one analyst.20 The U.S. is looking at 
ways to push through its "vision" of how the Middle East is to be remolded 
economically, politically, and socially––with Iraq proving to be an 
important testing ground for these policies.

Details of the U.S. administration's designs first emerged in May 2003 when 
Bush outlined a plan to create a U.S.-Middle East free trade area within 
ten years "to bring the Middle East into an expanding circle of 
opportunity, to provide hope for the people who live in that region."21 
When a reporter from the Economist asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert 
Zoellick where Iraq stood in the U.S. vision of the Middle East Free Trade 
Agreement (MEFTA), Zoellick was amazingly forthcoming as to exactly how the 
U.S. will proceed on this front.22 After making the necessary disclaimer, 
"The decisions for Iraq ultimately have to be made by the Iraqi people and 
a new sovereign government of Iraq," Zoellick continued by outlining 
exactly what the sovereign government is likely to do:

It would certainly be our hope that Iraq could be one of the engines of a 
new openness and economic growth and vitality in the region. My own 
assessment is you have to walk before you can run, and at this point, the 
first step is making sure one establishes security; it's hard to have a 
climate for economic growth without security. Simultaneously the second 
aspect has been to work on humanitarian aid as necessary.

 Third, get the 
oil sanctions lifted and start to get their oil flowing so as to provide a 
revenue source. Fourth, we're going to have to deal with the debt problem 
whether through forgiveness or rescheduling because that's a big overhang. 
Fifth, there clearly needs to be a reconstruction effort in the traditional 
term of reconstruction, building things.

 Now, going beyond that, there 
will also be the need to develop commercial codes and legal regimes. We and 
other countries will be supportive of that. I believe the World Bank is 
trying to help with its programs. And that I hope will create the 
foundation for the steps on the trade side.

 What would be the next steps 
on the trade side?

 We would like to qualify Iraq for that Generalized 
System of Preferences.

 And then I think the next step will be to get Iraq 
into the WTO. But those steps obviously have to wait the decisions of the 
sovereign Iraq Government.23

The erecting of a Middle East Free Trade Area takes its inspiration 
directly from the experience of the past ten years on the 
Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian front, where a NAFTA-style maquiladora system 
was established by creating tax-free industrial trade zones for local and 
international capital. The Palestinian component, though once off to a 
"healthy start," was largely scuttled due to outbreak of the Palestinian 
Intifada in September 2000. Yet the "Jordanian experience" continues to 
this day, building on the peace treaty it signed with Israel in 1994, the 
Qualified Industrial Zones Jordan erected in 1997, and the free trade 
agreement it signed with the U.S. in 2000.

By law, only 15 percent of the industries and companies located in the 
Jordanian industrial zones are required to have Jordanian partnership. A 
full 85 percent of the industry and its profits therefore go directly to 
international capital. Furthermore, investors have the freedom to exploit 
local cheap labor and utilize Jordan's land and infrastructure without 
paying any taxes or tariffs, thereby destroying local industries that do 
not share these perks. The Jordanian industrial zones are also used as 
means by which pressure can be applied to other regional Arab industries to 
get them to follow a similar neoliberal agenda. For example, the opening of 
the Jordanian free trade zone and the signing of the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade 
Agreement forced the Egyptian textile industry to engage in a competitive 
race to the bottom.

Not surprisingly, the free trade zones are also ways through which Israeli 
investors can move their industries in search of cheaper labor costs and 
weaker labor regulation, while simultaneously enforcing economic 
normalization. This has already begun to take place. A main investor in the 
Prince Hassan City

Industrial Complex ($15 million) is the Israeli textile giant Delta Galil 
Industries, best known for its underwear business.24 Delta Galil's CEO Dov 
Lautman explains frankly, "There's no way you can sew in any western 
country, not even in Israel where labor costs are too high." The average 
monthly salary of $1,000 in Israel is incomparable to the $100——$150 that 
capitalists like Lautman can pay Jordanian women in the industrial zones. 
Lautman explains the convenience of the trade zones for Israeli capitalists 
like himself, who can leave Tel Aviv by car at six in the morning, arrive 
at Irbid in northern Jordan by nine, and be back in Haifa on the 
Mediterranean coast by three in the afternoon. The trade zones are also 
thought to alleviate the "population momentum bomb," owing to the fact that 
the Arab women who work in the zones for slave wages will be less likely to 
have large families if they are employed.

Jordan is the model for the Bush administration's vision of MEFTA. U.S. 
trade representative Zoellick has been spearheading these neoliberal 
agendas, initially unveiling plans at the World Economic Forum meeting held 
in Jordan in June 2003. Zoellick missed no opportunity at orientalism by 
declaring,"The United States aims to brighten the Middle East with as many 
success stories as stars in the desert sky. To do so, we are charting a new 
constellation: shining lights of trade and investment that offer a clear 
course for countries in the region wishing to embark on a journey of 
economic openness and reform."25 He even went so far as to use the verse 
from the Koran, "Let there be trading by mutual consent," in an op-ed for 
the Washington Post to shamelessly justify U.S. neoliberalism across the 
region.

At the same time, Zoellick did not hold back from what it "was going to 
take" to get those "stars in the desert sky" to start shining: "Capital is 
a coward. I wish it weren't so, but it is. Frankly, investors have 
opportunities all over the world. What does that mean? It means that people 
in this region have to make it a hospitable environment, they have to show 
people that they can get good returns on the investment. Is this possible? 
You bet."

Zoellick continued:

How do you improve your environment for private capital? For one, we can do 
it by opening our markets so that people have the opportunity to sell their 
goods to the United States, Europe, or other areas of the world. But, the 
people in this region have to make the right climate in terms of property 
rights, laws, judicial systems. They have to learn the risk premium. How 
can you lower the risk and how can we increase the potential return? The 
question is really not what favors people can do but what favors people can 
do for themselves by creating the environment. And what we're here to do is 
to help.26

The U.S. free trade zone model is thus likely to extend from Israel through 
Jordan, and into Iraq––representing an uninterrupted chain of U.S. 
neoliberal regimes from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Gulf. Free trade 
agreements similar to the one signed between Jordan and the U.S. are in the 
process of being worked out in Bahrain (to be used as the agent of change 
in the Gulf region) and in Morocco (for North Africa).

More pre-packaged "reforms"

In November 2003, the Bush administration unveiled a plan entitled the 
Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), "founded to support economic, 
political, and educational reform efforts in the Middle East and champion 
opportunity for all people of the region, especially women and youth."27 
These ideas were elaborated on in a draft of a leaked U.S. working paper 
due to be submitted to the Group of Eight (G8, composed of the U.S., 
France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Britain, Japan, and representatives from 
the European Union) for its upcoming summit on Sea Island, Georgia in June 
2004, and published in the London-based Al Hayat newspaper on February 13. 
The document calls upon the G8 (and not just the U.S.) to "forge a 
long-term partnership with the Greater Middle East's reform leaders and 
launch a coordinated response to promote political, economic, and social 
reform in the region." It does so based upon the claim that "So long as the 
region's pool of politically and economically disenfranchised individuals 
grows, we will witness an increase in extremism, terrorism, international 
crime, and illegal migration"––a situation which threatens "the national 
interests of all G-8 members."

Predictably, the thrust of the draft document deals with more "economic 
reforms" aimed at "unleashing the region's private sector potential," the 
"primary engines of economic growth and job creation." The U.S., through 
the G8, is attempting to push for "the growth of an entrepreneurial class 
in the Greater Middle East [GME]" which "would also be an important element 
in helping democracy and freedom flourish."

The economic initiative calls for the G8 to "commit to an integrated 
finance initiative" consisting of sponsoring microfinance projects 
(primarily designed to engage women in the workforce); establish a Greater 
Middle East Finance Corporation modeled on the International Finance 
Corporation (to "help incubate medium and larger-sized businesses, with an 
aim toward regional business integration"); establish a Greater Middle East 
Development Bank (GMEDBank) which would act as a "regional development 
institution modeled on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 
(EBRD)," a kind of regional World Bank; create a "Partnership for Financial 
Excellence" designed to "advance reform of financial services" to "better 
integrate the GME into the global financial system"; promote accession into 
the World Trade Organization (WTO); create trade hubs "focused on improving 
intra-regional trade and customs practices" and "Business Incubator Zones 
(BIZ)."

Complementary to the economic and financial aspects of these initiatives 
(which essentially amount to variations of structural adjustment policies), 
the U.S. also plans to draw up a new architecture for political and social 
infrastructure as well. Of course, neither the U.S. nor the G8 is serious 
about implementing any genuine democratic elections to remove from power 
its most trusted allies like King Abdullah of Jordan, King Hassan of 
Morocco, or Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Rather, the plans are designed to 
implement some form of nominal democratic reforms (like the present 
Jordanian or Moroccan parliaments, which are totally powerless) that can 
serve to better buffer genuine democratic sentiment and popular opposition 
to governmental policies, while true power remains with the same kings, 
princes, emirs, and presidents. At the same time, social and economic 
programs are put in place to foster and promote local "organic" adherents 
to U.S. neoliberal political and economic ambitions. Thus, U.S. proposals 
include focusing on "promoting democracy and good governance"; encouraging 
"parliamentary exchange and training programs"; establishing "women's 
leadership academies"; encouraging the growth of "civil society," 
"educational reform," "literacy," and textbook translation.

Here too, Iraq and Palestine are proving to be the training grounds for 
implementing similar plans across the entire region. The political and 
social reforms proposed to the G8 are similar to the policies implemented 
in the West Bank and Gaza during the peace process. During that time 
(1993——2000) millions of dollars of international aid poured in from a host 
of Western governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), on 
projects that ranged from "promoting democracy and good governance," to 
"civil society and women's empowerment," "media independence," and 
"grassroots youth programs."

Though there is not enough space to go into the many levels of what they 
entailed, an important net effect of many of these projects was to alienate 
the grassroots movements from some of their most capable activists, who 
were drawn to high paying jobs (based on the euro or dollar currencies) in 
various NGOs and PA ministries, and civil society bodies. The drift of 
free-floating organic intellectuals away from grassroots movements and the 
political parties they were involved in played a significant part in 
destroying much of the Palestinian Left. The absence of these activists 
from the Palestinian parties and grassroots organizations had a damaging 
effect on the intellectual and organizational infrastructure of the 
Palestinian national movement as a whole. Clearly, similar plans are to be 
implemented across the Middle East––the U.S. draft to the G8 calls for an 
increase in "direct funding to democracy, human rights, media, women's, and 
other NGOs in the region" through bodies like the CIA-created National 
Endowment for Democracy and the British Westminster Foundation.

We already have an indication of how these plans are being implemented 
within Iraq. Though much attention has correctly been focused on the 
"corporate invasion of Iraq" by large U.S. corporations like Halliburton 
and Bechtel, scarcely enough attention has been given to how the U.S. 
intends to privatize Iraqi political structures. This is primarily taking 
place via a North Carolina-based NGO known as the Research Triangle 
Institute (RTI), which was asked by the U.S. Agency for International 
Development to bid on a contract to play a formative role in the creation 
of Iraq's future local governance, two weeks before the invasion began. 
Upon winning the contract, RTI was charged with setting up 180 local and 
provincial town councils, a $466 million contract worth $167.9 million in 
the first year alone.

As Naomi Klein recently pointed out:

It now turns out that the town councils RTI has been quietly setting up are 
the centerpiece of Washington's plan to hand over power to appointed 
regional caucuses.

 Washington wants a transitional body in Iraq with the 
full powers of sovereign government, able to lock in decisions that an 
elected government will inherit. To that end, Paul Bremer's Coalition 
Provisional Authority is pushing ahead with its illegal free-market 
reforms, counting on these changes being ratified by an Iraqi government it 
can control. For instance, on January 31 Bremer announced the awarding of 
the first three licenses for foreign banks in Iraq. A week earlier, he sent 
members of the Iraqi Governing Council to the World Trade Organization to 
request observer status, the first step to becoming a member. And Iraq's 
occupiers just negotiated an $850 million loan from the International 
Monetary Fund, giving the lender its usual leverage to extract future 
economic "adjustments." Again and again, newly liberated people arrive at 
the polls only to discover that there is precious little left to vote for.28

The U.S. seeks to raise these concerns at the G8 because it wants to ensure 
that the major capitalist countries of the world are united in 
understanding that their collective interests lie in subverting any 
revolutionary tendencies that could emerge in the Middle East. In this 
regard, the U.S. is actively soliciting the enlistment of NATO sponsorship 
for its plans. "NATO is going to be part of this conversation about change 
in the Middle East and NATO has something very important to offer," U.S. 
Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman told reporters in Brussels after a 
tour to Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Bahrain. "We want to go forward in 
supporting ideas for reform, economic reform, political reform, educational 
reform...[and] all of those things would be so much more successful if 
there's also security and I think NATO has some role to play in that." 
Grossman however was quick to allay any fear of neo-imperialism. "The best 
ideas will come from the region," he said. "This is not about the United 
States or Europe or anyone else imposing reform on people."29

Conclusion

It is no mistake that the unveiling of U.S. economic, political, and social 
objectives in the Middle East comes on the heels of the display of enormous 
U.S. military strength witnessed in the invasion of Iraq, and which was 
designed to deter any and all who might think of resisting. Nor is it 
coincidental that it comes at a time when the Arab Left is in shambles, and 
where one of the only organized centers of social, political, and military 
resistance to American ambitions throughout the Middle East exists largely 
in the form of various Islamic movements. These appear to be easily 
disqualified and––due to racism––are categorically unacceptable to any U.S. 
neoliberal capitalist order by large parts of the U.S. establishment, but 
also by large sections of the antiwar movement, too. But this reticence 
must be quickly overcome. The Islamic movements––which arose out of the 
great defeats of Arab nationalism and the secular Arab Left, by Israel, the 
U.S., and U.S.-backed dictators over the last thirty years––are becoming 
umbrellas of resistance of all types––nationalist, Islamic, and even 
remnants of the Arab Left. They have correctly placed resisting U.S. 
imperialism in Palestine and Iraq as their first priority, and fighting for 
the self-determination of their peoples.

In this respect, these Islamic movements need the unconditional support of 
the U.S. antiwar movement, which must reject any hair-splitting regarding 
the nature or character of this resistance.

Despite the sobering enormity of the challenges at hand, U.S. activists 
must not be deterred from taking up the struggle of resisting U.S. 
imperialism in Iraq, Palestine, and throughout the entire Middle East. 
Before it proceeds however, it is imperative that the movement engages in 
this battle with a clear vision of the issues at hand, and where its 
responsibilities lie.

There is no connection between Iraq and Palestine and their respective 
occupations unless one can see them within the framework of U.S. 
imperialism, and as the product of U.S. capitalism and its policies around 
the world. If the U.S. antiwar movement is to make any gains in resisting 
the U.S. war machinery in the Middle East and elsewhere, it is necessary 
that the Left of this movement––its anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist 
backbone––harden itself and set the agenda for change and for resistance.

In this struggle, we must draw inspiration from the heroic struggles of the 
Palestinian and Iraqi peoples who are actively engaged in resisting this 
war machinery on a daily basis. At the same time, it is our responsibility 
to wage a similar daily battle against this behemoth that creates victims 
not only outside the U.S., but also includes the U.S. working class. 
Indeed, it is an illusion to think that the American people do not pay a 
price for this war as well.

Take for example, the well-publicized case of Halliburton, the company that 
has been awarded some of the most profitable contracts in Iraq to develop 
its oil infrastructure and build U.S. military bases there. Halliburton is 
the same company that aggressively pushed its tort reform plan designed to 
cap asbestos lawsuits in the U.S. by victims of the cancer-causing asbestos 
it used in its buildings.30 Its subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), 
which is in the process of building the U.S. bases and forward military 
posts in Iraq, developed its "skills" during the prison construction boom 
of the 1990s, becoming the second-largest player in prison design and 
construction in the United States. Caterpillar, the same company which 
produces contracting equipment used today in the demolition of Palestinian 
and Iraqi homes (and which killed U.S. citizen Rachel Corrie in Rafah) also 
attacks its own U.S. union workers. Likewise, the same skills used to smash 
popular large-scale demonstrations developed by the Israeli military are 
being utilized by police chiefs of major U.S. cities, through exchange 
programs organized by the influential JINSA think tank, of which Vice 
President Dick Cheney is a board member.

It is not enough to calculate the price paid in lives lost and the amount 
of tax money spent on the military industrial complex that could be used 
for education and health care in the United States. Nor is it enough to 
single-out a handful of corporations that are profiteering off the death, 
destruction, and rapacious exploitation of the world's working classes and 
the earth's resources. Rather, our resistance must go deeper to the very 
fabric of the capitalist system that alienates and exploits, imprisons, and 
excludes, bombs, kills, and lies. We must accept nothing less than the 
categorical rejection of this system, supporting the full 
self-determination of the people in Iraq, Palestine, and around the world. 
We must work to build the only alternative that sets as its goals the end 
of exploitation and the development of equality, freedom, and fulfillment 
of humankind. A socialist world is possible––and necessary.



1 The full text of the statement can be found at 
http://_www.internationalanswer.org/news/update/011204openletter.html.

2 Eric Ruder, "From Iraq to Palestine: No to Occupation!" Socialist Worker, 
February 27, 2004.

3 Seymour M. Hersh, "Moving Targets: Will the Counter-Insurgency Plan in 
Iraq Repeat the Mistakes of Vietnam?" New Yorker, December 15, 2003.

4 Interview with Azmi Bishara, "On the Intifada, Sharon's Aims, '48 
Palestinians and NDA/ Tajamu Stratagem," Between the Lines, available 
online at http://www.azmibishara.info/interviews/btl_sharonaims.htm.

5 "Pledges for Peace," AIPAC, Near East Report, June 9, 2003.

6 Quoted in Maxime Rodinson, Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? (New York: 
Pathfinder Press, 2002), 41.

7 Max Nordau, "Zionist Works," vol. 4, The Zionist Library, The Executive 
of the Zionist Organization, Jerusalem, 1962, 203.

8 Phil Marshall, Intifada (Bookmarks, London, 1989), 76——77.

9 This was known as the Lavon affair, after Israeli Defense Minister Pinhas 
Lavon. In 1954, Israeli agents working in Egypt planted several bombs, 
including in a United States diplomatic facility, and left evidence behind 
implicating Arabs as the culprits. The failed when one of the bombs 
detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to capture and identify one 
of the bombers, who it turned out was part of an Israeli spy ring. For an 
account of the Lavon Affair, see David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch 
(London: Futura Publications, 1984).

10 Excerpts from Yossi Melman, Haaretz, February 21, 2000.

11 Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms and Why 
(New York: Pantheon, 1987), 196——98. Quoted in Paul D'Amato, "U.S. 
Intervention in the Middle East: Blood for Oil," International Socialist 
Review 15, December 2000——January 2001.

12 Interview with Silvan Shalom on "Charlie Rose," PBS, March 23, 2004. It 
should be noted that the latter half of this quotation (beginning with 
"Just try to imagine

) was deliberately cut from the transcript of the 
show published by the Israeli foreign ministry Web site, and was only 
retrieved by the author by listening and transcribing it from the original 
recording.

13 George Wright, Guardian, June 4, 2003.

14 "The U.S. Military and the Evolving Challenges in the Middle East," 
Anthony Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 9, 
2002, 5.

15 Quoted in Phil Gasper, "Imperialism: Washington's Gamble for a New 
Middle East," International Socialist Review 27, January——February 2003.

16 David Morgan, "Bush Underscores U.S. Interests in a Sovereign Iraq," 
Reuters, February 21, 2004.

17 Anthony Cordesman, "Peace is Not Enough: The Arab-Israeli Economic and 
Demographic Crisis," Center for Strategic and International Studies, 
February 1998, available online at 
http://www.csis.org/"mideast/reports/"peaceai1.pdf.

18 Daniel T. Griswold, "Can Free Trade Promote Peace in the Middle East?" 
Cato Institute Capitol Hill Forum, June 20, 2003.

19 "U.S. Initiates Ambitious Plan for Middle East Free Trade Area, " Center 
for Strategic and International Studies, July 31, 2003.

20 Edward Gresser, "Blank Spot on the Map: How Trade Policy is Working 
Against the War on Terror," Progressive Policy Institute Policy Report, 
February 2003, available online at 
http://www.ppionline.org/_ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=108&subsecID=127&contentID=251254.

21 "Bush Calls for U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area," May 9, 2003, State 
Department Web site at 
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/summit/"text2003/"0509bushfta.htm.

22 See "Roundtable With Robert B. Zoellick U.S. Trade Representative," 
Marriott Hotel, Dead Sea, June 23, 2003.

23 Ibid.

24 Ali Hattar, "Evaluation of the Industrial Zones", Kan'an #116, January 
2004 (Arabic, translated by the author).

25 Robert B. Zoellick, "Global Trade and the Middle East: Reawakening a 
Vibrant Past," United States Trade Representative Remarks at the World 
Economic Forum Dead Sea, Jordan June 23, 2003.

26 Robert Zoellick, "Q&A Following Speech at World Economic Forum," Dead 
Sea, Jordan, June 23, 2003, available online at 
http://"www.ustr.gov/"releases/2003/06/2003-06-23-jordon-qanda.PDF.

27 See the Middle East Partnership Initiative Web site at 
http://"mepi.state.gov/"mepi/.

28 Naomi Klein, "Hold Bush to His Lie," Nation, February 5, 2004.

29 "Ideas for Middle East Reform Will Come from Region," March 8, 2004, 
available online at 
http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/"press/"2004/"march/090303.html.

30 Vijay Prashad, "Halliburton's Ancient Scandals," February 15, 2004, 
Znet, available online at 
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-02/"15prashad.cfm.
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