U.S. oil imperialism incites war against Palestine and West Asia

The U.S.-Israeli forces that started waging a genocidal war on Gaza are now bombing and invading Syria. They are hitting Lebanon. Israeli warplanes are even hitting Yemen, a thousand miles from their bases.

It’s a U.S.-Israeli war because there is hardly any separation between the Pentagon and the U.S.-led war state and its pawn, the state of Israel. Where does the ambition of the U.S. and its agent, Israel, come from? Where does it come from that they have to carry out genocide across West Asia on the beautiful lands where the peoples of three great continents have come together for thousands of years?

The ambition and predatory drive of these imperialists come from the capitalist system which seeks to exploit the world’s great energy resources, which chiefly come from the Gulf region. Oil doesn’t get its value until it is pumped out, refined and transported across the world by workers.

In industrialized society oil is considered to be the most valuable widely used resource to keep industrial production going. It is also necessary for the destruction caused by war and contributes to the destruction of the environment.

Oil is exploited by the huge monopoly corporations of imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism. Six of these “super-major” corporations — Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Total, BP, Equinor and Shell — made a combined profit of $250 billion in 2022, with Exxon’s share being almost $50 billion.

This enormous profit is what is behind the rabid, war-like nature of Israel and its imperialist sponsor, the United States.

Corporate profit is the inner mechanism which keeps the capitalist system going. But it is necessary for the capitalists to have expanding profits from year to year. If they don’t expand profits, they will be taken over by their competitors or be put out of business. This is the law of the competitive nature of the capitalist system.

Drive for profits promotes war

The drive to increase profits is the main reason behind the decades of almost continuous wars across West Asia and Northern Africa. And it’s behind imperialist hostility to any potential Arab, Iranian or other people’s revolutions against imperialism — with the Palestinian revolution being the most resilient and long-lasting struggle against imperialism and for the return of their stolen historic lands.

The U.S. went to war against Iraq in 1991 and again in 2003. The U.S. occupiers waged a bloody counterinsurgency campaign from 2006-2008 against tremendous Iraqi resistance. The U.S. used over a million troops in these wars.

Because of multiple exhaustive deployments, in these wars the Pentagon deployed about the same number of troops used in Vietnam. In between these two U.S. invasions of Iraq, Washington imposed economic sanctions against Iraq that cost the lives of at least 1.5 million Iraqis.

Dick Cheney, who had been at the Halliburton oil services company, was secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush during the 1991 war on Iraq. Then Cheney became CEO of Halliburton and then became President George W. Bush’s vice president.

Halliburton went on to gain huge contracts for oil services and logistics in Iraq under U.S. occupation. After this genocidal war, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Marathon oil giants took over Iraq’s oil and soon began exporting it — a major reconquest for imperialism. Demonstrators who opposed the U.S. occupation chanted, “No Blood for Oil!”

John Gibson, chief executive of Halliburton Energy Services Group, said in 2003: “We hope Iraq will be the first domino and that Libya and Iran will follow. We don’t like being kept out of markets, because it gives our competitors an unfair advantage.” (911plus.org, May 8, 2008)

In response to the earlier colonialist occupations of their lands, the workers and oppressed peoples of West Asia and North Africa made revolutions in Iraq, Iran, Libya and Algeria that expelled imperialist troops and nationalized the imperialist oil companies.

The Palestinian movement against imperialism has always paralleled the other sovereignty movements and gained the solidarity of neighboring countries in the Axis of Resistance and beyond. The imperialists have long considered the Palestinians a thorn in their side because their resistance ultimately can remove the U.S. oil giants and stop them from exploiting the vast oil resources of West Asia.

Gaza and Syria

The Palestinians carried out two extended uprisings or Intifadas, from 1987-1993 and from 2000-2005. After that, Hamas won elections in Gaza and took over the government there. Since then, the Palestinians have fought off four Israeli invasions of Gaza, before carrying out the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023.

The latest imperialist provocation is an invasion of Syria and the overthrow of the Assad government by various opposition forces supported by U.S. imperialism and by the reactionary regime in Türkiye. The U.S. and Israel have bombed Syria’s military resources and seized territory.

There are now 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria with new forces being moved into the region. There are 45,000 U.S. troops in Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

In Syria, the U.S. troops are guarding the oil reserves. There is one oil field in Syria which could provide enough oil and natural gas for the whole country, but the U.S. has held it for years and refuses to release it for impoverished Syrians. This economic pressure provoked the recent counter-revolution in Syria.

These developments once again highlight the importance of the struggle against the oil monopolies as part of the movement against imperialism. Clearly, the imperialists are risking enormous destruction in a wide gold rush to expand their profits, now in decline. A section of U.S. imperialism is even opposing the mild reforms of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) held recently in Azerbaijan.

The oil monopolies’ rush to suck more West Texas crude oil out of the ground, along with new developments in oil drilling technology, have moved the U.S. to be the world’s leading oil producer and exploiter. Auto companies are cutting back on electric vehicle production and producing more trucks that run on fossil fuels.

Big Oil needs to be exposed and targeted as the driving force in imperialist greed and war and destruction of the environment. We join together with the millions and billions of oppressed humanity to defend the right of oppressed nations to self-determination! No blood for oil! Free Palestine!