Tag Archives: Strait of Hormuz

Mad or Crazy? Israel will not attack Iran….

Posted on August 22 2012 by Uri Avnery

I HAVE said so before, and I shall say so again, even after the endless talk about it. Indeed no war has been talked about so much before it happened. To quote the classic movie line: “If you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk!”

In all Netanyahu’s bluster about the inevitable war, one sentence stands out: “In the Committee of Inquiry after the war, I shall take upon myself the sole responsibility, I and I alone!”

A very revealing statement.

First of all, committees of inquiry are appointed only after a military failure. There was no such committee after the 1948 War of Independence, nor after the 1956 Sinai War or the 1967 Six-day War. There were, however, committees of inquiry after the 1974 Yom Kippur war and the 1982 and 2006 Lebanon Wars. By conjuring up the specter of another such committee, Netanyahu unconsciously treats this war as an inevitable failure.

Second, under Israeli law, the entire Government of Israel is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Under another law, all ministers bear “collective responsibility”. TIME magazine, which is becoming more ridiculous by the week, may crown “King Bibi”, but we still have no monarchy. Netanyahu is no more than primus inter pares.

Third, in his statement Netanyahu expresses boundless contempt for his fellow ministers. They don’t count. Continue reading →

Oil and the Middle East conflict: An interview with Michael Klare, Part One

Posted on July 12 2012 by MEE Administrator

One of the subjects that Middle East Experience seeks to explore is the relationship between oil and U.S. foreign policy. So we decided to talk to one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject.  Michael Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author of Resource Wars and Blood and Oil.    

Here’s what we talked about:

MEE: How would you define the Middle East?

Klare: That’s a good question because we talk a lot about the Middle East and Middle Eastern oil, and in my mind when you talk about the Middle East, the center of gravity for the Middle East would be Cairo, and the countries to the east and west of it for the most part. But when you’re talking about Middle Eastern oil, you’re really talking about the Persian Gulf area. So that would be on the eastern side of Cairo.  It’s often spoken of as Southwest Asia.  So it’s common to mix up the Middle East and the Persian Gulf area when talking about oil. I do it all the time, but in my mind they’re really somewhat different places, because the center of gravity for oil is really Saudi Arabia, and that’s somewhat to the east of what people would think of as the main centers of the Middle East.

 

MEE: For the past 30 years, violence in the Middle East has increasingly dominated the news cycle here in America, and many believe that oil plays an important factor in that. To what extent does the control of oil resources fuel conflict in the Middle East?

 
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