The United States behaves quite consistently with regard to aggression: It's fine if it's in perceived U.S. interest; it's bad if it's opposed to perceived U.S. interest.
In this case, Iraq violated a fundamental principle—that the energy reserves of the Middle East have to be firmly in the hands of the U.S. energy corporations and trusted U.S. clients like the Saudi Arabian elite.
We don't care if the Saudi elite administers oil prices, because that's just like having it done from New York. We do care if an independent nationalist moves in to exert some influence over the resources of the region and threatens to use them for domestic purposes. We oppose that anywhere in the world.
We always oppose independent nationalism in the Third World because it interferes with the traditional role of the Third World, which is to allow itself to be exploited for the benefit of the West. But in the Middle East, nationalism is particularly important, because the oil is really crucial: For several generations into the future it will be the world's major cheap and readily available energy. No nationalist is permitted to move in.
In Iran in 1953, we overthrew a conservative nationalist parliamentary regime. Since last August, we have opposed a murderous tyrant in Iraq, but he was just as much a murderous tyrant before August and we supported him fine. We thought he was wonderful because he wasn't interfering with American interests.
It's obvious the United States does not oppose aggression. In case after case of annexation or aggression, we've either carried it out ourselves or some client state has carried it out and we've been perfectly happy with it. A little more than a year ago, the United States invaded Panama. That's aggression. We had to veto two U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning it. We imposed a puppet regime of our choice. Panama is still under military control; in fact, it describes itself as a country under military occupation.
That's probably what Saddam Hussein would have done with Kuwait if there hadn't been U.N. sanctions: He probably would have moved in, established a puppet regime, kept enough force in the background so they would do what he wanted, and then pulled out. That's the easy way to administer a country.
Turkey invaded northern Cyprus, virtually annexed it. The United States supported that. We've been interfering with U.N. efforts to settle the Cyprus problem since the early 1960s. It's very similar to Kuwait: Turkey killed a couple of thousand people, looted the place, tried to destroy any relic of Greek civilization, drove out a couple of hundred thousand people. But that was just fine; nobody even talks about it. When the President of Turkey came to Washington, George Bush hailed him as a peacemaker.
Israel attacked Lebanon and killed many more people than Saddam Hussein did—about 20,000. It viciously bombarded a capital right in front of the TV cameras. It still occupies southern Lebanon. The United States vetoed a whole series of U.N. Security Council resolutions to try to terminate that aggression.
Morocco invaded the Western Sahara, essentially annexed it. The United States thinks that's fine; Morocco is an ally. In the worst case of the modern period, Indonesia invaded and annexed East Timor. That was near genocidal—a couple of hundred thousand people killed in about the worst slaughter since the Holocaust relative to population. That was just fine. Jimmy Carter gave them aid. Everybody applauded.
Everyone in the Third World can see that the United States is a major violator of the principle that aggression is wrong. If someone changes borders in a way that seems to suit our interest, we have no problem with that. But if borders are changed in a way that seems contrary to U.S. interests, that's a horrible crime that calls for Nuremberg trials. This is so transparent that it's almost unfair to call it hypocrisy.
Somebody has to run the Third World and make sure there's no independence. We can do that because we have a monopoly on force. We will simply coerce our allies into paying for it. They're going to rely on us for the force to control the world, and we can turn that to our advantage by forcing them to give us economic concessions. That's the New World Order.
This article is adapted from an interview conducted by David Barsamian of KGNU radio, Boulder, Colorado.