Iraq and the US Global Agenda

From Counterpunch:

The new National Security Strategy promises to ignite "a new era of global economic growth through free markets and free trade," and to use American preeminence to promote an "efficient allocation of resources, and regional integration." In other words, the U.S. seeks to use its military power to secure favored access to markets, raw materials, and human labor across the planet.

Joseph Nye, dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard, compares the Bush II strategy to a three-dimensional chessboard: "The top board is the military and we can do pretty much what we want. The middle board is economics, and is not a world America controls." Cheney and Rumsfeld are focusing on the "top board," he argues, in order to parlay U.S. military power into greater economic and political power. Nye's "bottom level" consists of factors beyond Washington's control -- anti-U.S. movements, weapons proliferation, the spread of infectious disease, etc. He warns, "The Cheney-Rumsfeld focus on the top board may win in the short run, but will cause lots of problems in the long run."

This is where oil ties in: global capitalism remains dependent on a steady flow of low-priced petroleum, making oil both vital to the health of the world economy and key to the competitive position of rival nations. "The single best cyclical indicator for the world economy is the price of oil," one economist told The New York Times, "Nothing moves in the world economy without oil in there somewhere."

Of course it's about the oil...

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