Give Them Liberty or Give Us Oil: The Key to American Foreign Policy in the Arab World

As a foreigner I used to take seriously the notion that America so values democracy that the nation would consistently prioritize the cause of liberty above all other agendas. In 1990, when America declared war on Sadam Hussein's Iraq, some of us Africans reluctantly entertained the thought that America was simply pursuing the cause of justice; namely, to liberate Kuwaitis from Sadam and his invaders.

Then I became a driver in Kentucky. Soon I realized the need for petroleum, the need for the gasoline in my tank to remain at an affordable price. I learned that a sharp rise in the price of unleaded gasoline is political poison that every American president or ruling party fears. It dawned on me: President George H.W. Bush did not drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait because he wanted set Kuwaitis free; it was all for the sake of unclogging the global petroleum pipeline.

More than 20 years later, and after Bush the Son removed Sadam, the oil agenda reigns. Affordable fossil fuel still drives much of American foreign policy in the so-called Middle East. Even America's Israeli-Palestinian policy is about that too, not primarily about how Americans prefer Jews over Palestinians.

Later today when I glanced at $3.15 per gallon for regular unleaded, the oily reality hit home once more. Earlier in the day on Wall Street the stock market tanked by more than 178 points, an over 1% drop. Why? The price of oil spiked for the second day in a roll.

Reports Bloomberg.com, “ Oil rose from the highest close in more than two years as Libya’s violent uprising threatened to disrupt exports from Africa ’s third-biggest supplier and spread to other crude-producing nations in the Middle East.” Crude oil rose to “to $96.08 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange … the highest since October 2008. Futures are up 21 percent from a year ago.”

Containing the price of oil has been the single biggest ally of Arab dictators like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak (deposed) of Egypt and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who has ruled that nation since a 1969 military coup; that's more than 40 years. Were it not for brave ordinary Egyptians and Libyans, both Mubarak and Gaddafi would remain lifetime tyrants, with the wink or blessing of the United States. Why? Crude oil. Who cares about another reason?

Oil is the fuel that drives the engine of American liberty, and as such, the fuel has become as important, if not more important, than the engine it drives. As long as fossil fuel remains the fluid that powers our transportation, utilities, communication and security, we Americans have little choice but to put the flow of oil above the struggle for freedom and the spread of democracy elsewhere in the world.

That largely explains why America props up repressive Arab & African governments whose practices are the very antithesis of democracy. Buzz words like “security” and “stability” have been stripped naked to be what they really are: code words for “cheap oil”.

Herein is the spirit of the dirty deal that American regimes, one after the other, has cut with these autocratic rulers: As long as you guarantee us the fuel we need we will not press you to give your people the freedom they need. Until the day dawns that America can produce almost all the oil she consumes, or the time comes when America seriously flips the switch to alternative fuel, there is hardly any way around this trade of: our need for foreign oil trumps our agenda for freedom, democracy, human rights and civil rights for millions of Arabs. Lovers of justice await the moment when this reality will be no more. Perhaps the freedom uprisings in various Arab nations can achieve the noble calling that cheap oil has barred America from. May Gaddifi bow next at the feet of Lady Liberty so that the world will keep discovering that some things are just more important than keeping crude oil price below $100 a barrel. ~mogama~