United States Has Structural and Historical Role in Changes in the Arab World

The United States has both a structural and historical role in the changes of the Arab world

Jose Arbex, Jr., journalist, PhD in History and Professor at the Catholic University of São Paolo (Pontificia Universidade Católica) explains the United States’ role in the popular Arabic movements:

What is the United States’ role in the popular Arab revolution?

Arbex: None if this question is referring to immediate actions, directly linked to movements.

A central aspect of the question refers to more profound structural and historical issues. An immediate result of the revolution was misery and increased hunger for the majority of the people in the Arab-speaking countries.

If the dimensions of an Arab revolution surprised the world, its causes were already well known. In 2010, experts from the United Nations warned of a new world hunger crisis and they themselves even predicted it would happen again as it did in the early part of 2011.

Along these lines, commerce and rampant speculation raised the price of food and is responsible for a mechanism that denies billions of people the right to a decent meal. This is primarily caused by the system within the United States, which houses the headquarters of global financial capitalism and major corporations that produce food. In this sense the role of the United States is both structural and historic.

How was the United States’ relationship with governments that counteracted/counteract riots?

Arbex: The best possible, more or less. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who was always well-received at the White House, functioned as his own people’s executioner. His unconditional alliance with Washington is a source of pressure on less docile governments in the Middle East such as Syria, and serves as a factor for regional stability (in combination with the allied governments of Saudi Arabia and Jordan), besides playing an important role in Northern Africa.

In Saudi Arabia, the world’s major exporter of petroleum, the royal family adopts the Wahhabi fundamentalism, accumulating a massive fortune at the expense of the majority of workers who live in dire poverty.

For many years, tensions have accumulated in Saudi Arabia, aggravated by the monarchy refusing to cede territory to the American and British bases in order to attack Iraq during the Gulf War. Even the sudden destabilization of Syria would be bad news for Washington and Israel.

Under a brutal dictatorship, where the cult of worshiping President Bashar Assad was practiced, Syria regained its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which was annexed by Israel during the Six-Days War (President Assad assumed office in July 2000, when he replaced his late father Hafez.) Even so, Syria has qualified as part of the “axis of evil” for the conservative right in the United States and Israel, who has also accused it of funding Hamas and Hezbollah. The Syrian dictatorship is simply a diplomatic game, so that the right can avoid direct confrontation (as they do with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for example) and look for more pragmatic solutions.

The real picture is that it is less dangerous for the White House to have a known enemy, which is controllable than to wait for another alternative, of which they are unaware.

The relationship between the White House and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi was even great. In 2003, Gaddafi announced his adherence to the “war on terror” promoted by George Bush and he gained the prize of the suspension of the economic sanctions that were imposed by the United States.

Suppliers of petroleum for the United States and Great Britain received the go-ahead to expand their activities in their country as well as in other European countries.

If the White House and the European Union decided to call off their honeymoon with Libya’s Gaddafi, it is only due to the fact that the regime, deeply shaken by the protests which have brought about the Arab revolutions, showed dangerous signs of failure to ensure the flow of oil exports.

What will be the United States’ relationship with these governments?

Arbex: It’s always been dangerous to speculate about the near future, especially when the Arab revolution is starting to inspire new resistance movements in Europe, which is what is happening right now in the Plaza del Sol and the center of Madrid, seriously threatening the stability of one of the core countries of the Eurozone. The Arab revolution still has a long way to go and for this reason it is impossible to prove what type of relationship the White House will maintain with future governments. But one can say with ease that new governments will have to make reforms and concessions to popular demands, which imply restrictions on the free flow of activities of the large U.S. corporations operating in the region.

What are the American interests in each country and in the region as a whole?

Arbex: Aside from petroleum, there are the usual economic and financial interests along with geopolitical interests. The financial crisis that started in 2008 determines the urgency with which Washington will have to stabilize the Middle East, because a sudden reduction or even uncertainty about the flow of oil in the world would cause an explosion in prices for oil, and this will deepen the crisis of global capital.

Saudi Arabia, which possesses about 24 per cent of measured petroleum reserves and is the world’s major exporter of the product, has the technical capacity and sufficient reserves to compensate for the interrupted or diminished supply from other oil producing countries, such as Libya, for some time. The situation will only really get out of control if Saudi Arabia is swallowed up by the Arab revolution. The Saudi monarchy is required to distribute billions of dollars in emergency social programs to alleviate social tensions, but above all the country must flex its muscles against Muslim demonstrators, which is very complicated and dangerous in the case of a regime that derives much of its prestige from being the guardian of Mecca and of the holiest sites of Islam.

The geopolitical interest refers, of course, to the stability of Israel, a historical ally of the United States in the region, but there is also Turkey, which now presents itself as a great unknown.