It is no accident that the first apparent foreign policy struggle taking place inside the Bush administration concerns the deepening crisis in the Middle East. While U.S. foreign policy has gone through numerous strategic and tactical shifts over the decades, one fundamental objective of U.S. policy has remained remarkably consistent. Two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves rest in this region. It is a source of fabulous corporate profits.
Oil constitutes the most vital strategic resource for military and industrial power.
This fundamental fact must be kept in mind when trying to understand the meaning of Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell's highly publicized tour of several Middle East countries in late February. Powell has publicly said that the United States should modify or ease some of the economic sanctions on Iraq, so as to rally Syria, Jordan, Egypt and other Arab regimes to support a less severe form of economic sanctions. Powell's attempt to reorient U.S. policy on Iraq is under attack from inside the Bush administration. Then we are going to kill it. The Arab people are increasingly angry about the U.S.-imposed sanctions that have killed more than 1.2 million civilians in Iraq.