USD Magazine, Winter 2002

CAUGH

Stunned by the terrorist attacks, Am hatred of the United States is so inte nations, and what we can do to preve

by Timothy McKernan B efore Sept. 11, the Middle Easr was, to most Americans, a mysterious, even perplexing place. Although news media regularly reported on events half a world away in Israel and rhe region's Arab nations, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, ir remained an enigma, a place where we sent billions of dollars for oil, bur where citizens remained impoverished, a place where we sold weapons to governments while encouraging peace. When Osama bin Laden's Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda net– work was identified as the perpetrator of the terrorise attacks, Americans began asking themselves questions chat had no easy answers: Why do many Middle Eastern nations so despise the United States? Why are we involved in their seemingly internal religious conflicts? And now chat the U.S. military is engaged in Afghanistan, what do we do now? The Oil Fields: A Slippery Slope To understand U.S. policy in the Middle East, experts in the field look at one constant in the region - its vast oil reserves. As the industrial revolution reached its zenith in the early 20th century and oil was discovered throughout the region, it appeared as an oasis to developed nations. Western countries, chiefly Great Britain and the United Scates, began to establish business interests. "Moses found water, but the Arabs found oil," says John Stoessinger, distinguished professor of global diplomacy at USD and Inamori chair of peace studies at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice. "It's an overstatement to say that oil is the only reason for the United States' involvement in the Middle East, but it is certainly a key one." A position paper prepared by the U.S. government in 1953 was more blunt: "American oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy." Oil interests became intertwined with political developments that further compelled the U .S. to become an active player in the Middle East. As the Cold War with the Soviet Un ion evolved in the 1950s, several states - Kazikstan and Uzbekistan among them - gave the Kremlin a powerful presence, and the United States feared not only losing it share of control of the oil fields, but, perhaps worse, watching the Soviets assume it.

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