What’s Going on In America?

When political analysts speak of the great financial crisis sweeping across the United States today, we find most of them focusing on the external repercussions of this crisis, particularly those which affect our much-afflicted countries. We even find them going into minute political details, striving to establish the effect on U.S. foreign policy, including changes to the evil policies the U.S. has imposed on the rest of the world.

This focus falls grossly short if it does not include the global, historical, and strategic dimensions as well as U.S. internal structure, since this crisis is nothing but the foremost appearance of a general crisis of global capitalism. This can be witnessed in the U.S. both geographically and demographically, in both its land and society. If we are to depend on positive structural change in the global order, we need to depend on the same changes in the U.S.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century and lasting some four decades, America’s spoken word could not be ignored in international affairs. For the following six decades of the same century, the U.S. occupied the supreme position of global leadership: She would order and others would comply. We saw how this leadership committed the crime of the century when she imposed the establishment of the terrorist Zionist Entity (1948) as, in its own words, “a state, a people and a nation,” despite the fact that it was not whatsoever.

The United States’ actions are measured by the harrowing crimes it has committed on all continents and in all countries. What is the fundamental basis the U.S. government has relied on to impose its policies on the world throughout the last century? The foundation from which successive U.S. governments have taken their strength is the nation’s advanced military power and the oil sector, during domestic peace and war time. The oil monopoly occupied the position previously enjoyed by coal, steam, and gunpowder. This shift produced new relations, hostile leaderships and outright war. Due to the relationship between oil production and war industries, threats were fabricated, thus serving as stimuli for the industry.

Despite this, the political leadership of the oil monopoly, particularly in Washington, appears to be on the verge of decline. The monopoly will soon face its demise, just like that witnessed by coal, steam, and gunpowder beginning with World War I. Their decline paved the way for the replacement, oil, to take their place. Perhaps G. W. Bush’s government will prove to be the last U.S. administration to use the oil monopoly as the primary engine for its internal and external policies. There are two main factors for this reasoning:

First, the rise of alternative sectors (in rich industrial countries) that have become developed enough to be considered in their own right; the respective countries’ determination and imposition of their presence in confronting the oil monopoly, such as the technology industry and its branches, which are innumerable; the proliferation of these new sectors as jobs for millions of working men and women, in addition to their practical and environmental purity, with more reasonable goals and relations; all of these reasons make these new rising industries more humane!

Second, the conflict between the interests of billions of people and the policies of the oil and war sector, especially in these recent mad and daunting times, has exhausted the world, which has been poisoned with gas, burned with bombs, and has had a great amount of blood spilled on it. The oil monopoly has attempted to defy death by committing the most heinous crimes to protect its position, despite the fact doing so appears to be mission impossible. There is no doubt that the most important elements undermining the U.S. hegemony are present within the country, and those internal elements may total more than the external ones!

The new American president Barack Obama’s program is making it a priority to work to extricate itself from oil dependency, and bring about huge changes in the U.S. economy. Once a dependence on renewable energy has been established, it will gradually be instituted as a substitute for oil. Once this happens, the global warming disaster will be first on the agenda, because America will not find herself an exception to its effects, of course. In this respect, Obama’s program looks to “take the necessary steps to end our reliance on imported Middle Eastern and Venezuelan oil in the coming ten years” (see Walid Khadduri’s article in alHayat, 25 January 2009).

It is worth remembering that the United States consumes twenty million barrels of oil daily; i.e., double Saudi Arabia’s production on a daily basis. This works out to be roughly a third of global consumption! The new president intends to produce roughly a million hybrid cars, which consume 1 gallon of gas for every 150 miles, by the end of 2015. He’s suggested devoting $8 billion dollars to support new energy sources, $6 billion to ration energy consumption, $20 billion of tax exemptions to those who use alternative energy sources and $11 billion to strengthen the electricity industry…in addition to other plans!

President Obama intends to improve technology that does away with nuclear waste, connect the electricity network to wind and solar energy in some states, and begin many other projects like these. What the new president wants to do is not new. In fact, these plans were presented by presidents preceding him. The difference is that those presidents backed down in face of the oil lobby, whereas Obama came to power in the wake of an oil administration, hated both domestically and abroad. Obama also appears to be supported by new material and social forces.

Yet we do not know whether these forces will be enough for Obama to triumph in face of his fierce opponents – the forces led by the oil lobby. Naturally, new forces are rising to condemn American involvement in the war on Iraq, Lebanon and recently Gaza. These are positive indicators for us Arabs. We need to consider their long-term effect, at least from the perspective of their new intentions, when compared the destructive tendencies of the oil barons!

A final word: What is happening in the United States today is the beginning of structural, material, and social change, which will therefore become political as well. We, along with the world in general, are interested in such change. The American deficit is over one billion dollars. The odds are in favor of the success of hundreds of thousands of Americans working, not to find alternative energy sources, but bringing about historic structural change, including a complete overhaul of internal relations, and thus external relations as well!