{"id":15489,"date":"2012-06-19T12:22:03","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T20:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=15489"},"modified":"2012-06-19T12:54:42","modified_gmt":"2012-06-19T20:54:42","slug":"the-imperial-balancing-act-maintaing-hegemony-while-avoiding-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/19\/the-imperial-balancing-act-maintaing-hegemony-while-avoiding-backlash\/","title":{"rendered":"The Imperial Balancing Act: Maintaing Hegemony While Avoiding ‘Backlash’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee just released a report<\/a>\u00a0[PDF]\u00a0on US policy in the Middle East. Much of the study describes how Washington will maintain key military bases and troop presence throughout the entire region<\/a> and how to overcome challenges to maintaining such dominance, which is vital because the region is “home to more than half of the world\u2019s oil reserves and over a\u00a0third of its natural gas.”<\/p>\n

One excerpt stuck out in which the Committee admits that US military presence in the region as well as US support for brutal dictatorships has generated widespread hatred and blowback. According to the report, the challenge is to maintain the imperial dominance over the region<\/a>, but avoid the messy “backlash<\/a>” and embarrassing support for “human rights abuses.”<\/p>\n

The United States must carefully shape its military\u00a0presence so as not to create a popular backlash, while retaining the\u00a0capability to protect the free flow of critical natural resources and\u00a0to provide a counterbalance to Iran. Earlier American deployments\u00a0in Saudi Arabia and Iraq generated violent local opposition. What\u00a0the West views as a deterrent against aggression could also be misconstrued\u00a0or portrayed as an occupying presence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As is usual, the most fundamental facts about US foreign policy toward the Middle East are openly talked about in high-level government agencies and bureaucracies, even while they remain too treasonous to explain on network news. What is striking is that Washington continues to insist on maintaining this military and economic dominance over the region, despite the horrors it has caused for the populations and for the safety of the US (think 9\/11, which was a direct response<\/a> to this kind of interventionism<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The United States should preserve the\u00a0model of \u2018\u2018lily pad\u2019\u2019 bases throughout the Gulf, which permits\u00a0the rapid escalation of military force in case of emergency. The\u00a0Obama administration has adopted this architecture by retaining\u00a0only essential personnel in the region while ensuring access\u00a0to critical hubs such as Camp Arifjan [in Kuwait], Al Udeid [Qatar], Al Dhafra [in the UAE],\u00a0Jebel Ali [in the UAE], and Naval Support Activity Bahrain. An agile footprint\u00a0enables the United States to quickly deploy its superior\u00a0conventional force should conflict arise, without maintaining a\u00a0costly and unsustainable presence. Sustaining physical infrastructure\u00a0and enabling functions such as intelligence, surveillance,\u00a0and logistics, while keeping certain war reserve materiel\u00a0forward positioned, is more important than deploying large\u00a0numbers of U.S. forces.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Preserving the model of “lily pad” bases peppered throughout the Gulf, which are afforded to Washington because it bribes undemocratic regimes with money and weapons, is how Washington maintains overweening power over the most geo-politically vital region in the world. This has been US policy since WWII, as\u00a0a\u00a0Top Secret National Security Council briefing<\/a>\u00a0put it in 1954, \u201cthe Near East is of great strategic, political, and economic importance,\u201d as it \u201ccontains the greatest petroleum resources in the world\u201d as well as \u201cessential locations for strategic military bases in any world conflict.\u201d After Obama administration failed in its efforts to maintain a large contingent of US forces in Iraq, following their predecessors launching of a criminal war there, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta\u00a0said he envisions about 40,000 troops<\/a>\u00a0will be stationed in the Middle East going forward.<\/p>\n

Not only does this lead to US support for all kinds of repression and state terror, but it is detrimental to US security in the long term. The “backlash” the Committee is so worried about cannot be avoided and the veritable garrisoning of Iran’s surroundings<\/a> makes the Islamic Republic more guarded<\/a>, which amplifies\u00a0tensions<\/a> and increases the likelihood of unnecessary conflict<\/a>.\u00a0The alternative, minding our own business, is incomprehensible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee just released a report\u00a0[PDF]\u00a0on US policy in the Middle East. Much of the study describes how Washington will maintain key military bases and troop presence throughout the entire region and how to overcome challenges to maintaining such dominance, which is vital because the region is “home to more than half […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15489"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15491,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15489\/revisions\/15491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15489"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}