The Thirty Year Oil Itch

Robert Dreyfuss elaborates on the 30-year strategy to secure the Persian Gulf's oil resources in a cover piece for Mother Jones.

"The key to national security is global hegemony," Dreyfuss writes. "To that end, the United States must not only be able to project its military forces anywhere, at any time. It must also control key resources, chief among them oil -- and especially Gulf oil. To the hawks who now set the tone at the White House and the Pentagon, the region is crucial not simply for its share of the U.S. oil supply (other sources have become more important over the years), but because it would allow the United States to maintain a lock on the world's energy lifeline and potentially deny access to its global competitors."

This strategy, he continues, "is finding its boldest expression yet in the Bush administration -- which, with its plan to invade Iraq and install a regime beholden to Washington, has moved closer than any of its predecessors to transforming the Gulf into an American protectorate."