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Wayne Foord
What do governments whose economies and citizens have become
heavily dependent on imports of oil do when the flow becomes unreliable? The intense attention of the developed world to Middle Eastern political affairs has always been critically tied to oil security…I
am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what
everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil
(Greenspan 2007: 463).
The events of 9/11 provided the pretext for the invasion of Iraq. According to General Wesley Clark, there were further plans to invade Libya,
Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, and Iran (Global Research 2007). All
of these countries, along with Iraq and Afghanistan, either have oil and
gas reserves, or are important geopolitically, as transit countries for pipelines. Ukraine, as an important energy corridor for oil and gas from the
Caspian Sea region, is the latest pawn in a ‘New Great Game’ (Klare
2012, 2008) between the major powers to secure control of remaining oil
and gas reserves, and pipeline routes (Ahmed 2014).
The ‘War on Terror’ also provided grounds for introducing domestic anti-terrorism legislation in both the US and UK, with the resulting loss of
civil liberties, increased surveillance, and appropriation of increasingly
repressive powers by the state (Ahmed 2013; American Civil Liberties
Union 2011; Hedges 2011; Wolin 2008). Concerns expressed in military and national security documents, regarding the risks of social unrest
arising from energy scarcity, may also be a significant driver of this legislation (Department of Energy and Climate Change 2009; Ministry of
Defence 2013; US Joint Forces Command 2010). For example, the UK
Ministry of Defence (2013) warns of “increased incidents of internal
unrest” and that “the western way of life with cheap access to a wide
variety of consumer choice and cheap energy will be increasingly challenged as lifestyles follow GDP levels” (Ministry of Defence 2013: 16).
Since 9/11, the indications are that Western nations, led by the US, are
heading towards a post-liberal order that is, effectively, authoritarian,