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- Uncritical support, protection and subsidy of Israel, including providing aid/defense money to buy Jordanian and Egyptian cooperation in the Israeli suppression of Palestinians.
- Manipulating oil flows and rigging prices, by [a] protecting Saudi Arabia (and the Persian Gulf Arab states) in return for Saudi adjustments (up and down) of oil production to assure a high and stable world oil prices, and by [b] limiting oil exports from--and/or preventing sales of oil drilling/producing/refining/pipeline equipment to--countries that don't cooperate in US control policies, most notably Iraq and post-Shah Iran. (Note: the failure of the U.S. occupation of Iraq has destroyed our 20 years of successful restriction of Iraqi oil exports and, even worse for U.S. control of oil prices, resulted in leasing of huge Iraqi oil reserves to Russia, China and others.)
- Recycling of petrodollars via weapons sales to oil-exporting countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, etc. (i.e. countries that cooperate in assuring high world oil prices) and via petrodollar flow to U.S. banking/investment houses and into U.S. Treasury paper.
Additional point: Since the end of WWII, these pillars have been supported and masked by efforts to limit Soviet and Iranian influence in the Middle East and N. Africa.
Chuck Spinney & Pierre Sprey (March 2011)
