OIL IN THE MIDDLE EAST

OIL IN THE MIDDLE EAST

·         After WW2 the future oil needs of the west were going to come from arab world and iran.

·         Oil becomes strategic factor in the region

·         In 50s 60s and 70s the middle east becomes principal source for oil exportation to western Europe and japan

·         If a anti-west leader comes into power in a major oil exporting middle east country, chances are the country is going to continue to export oil to the west since such a large portion of the country’s economy comes from oil exports.

·         After a country nationalizes  oil most of the time the profits go into the pockets of the leaders or high members of gov and not to masses.

·         May 1951 iran nationalizes oil, the Iranian government was a little democracy, and of course Britain refuses to buy oil from iran.

A CLASH OF IDEOLOGIES

·         United states promoting ideas of capitalism to people in the middle east and would like to train them effectively to enter the free world and be productive countries.

·         Russia promotes a government caring for the people from birth to death and destroying social classes creating one social class for everyone.

·         WW2 destroyed European will and ability to keep middle east colonies.

·         Palestine’s labour cabinet wants te create a binational state but sees that the US would not support it, it then takes its case o the UN.

·         When European countries would withdraw from their colonial possesions a pwower vacuum was created in which the US or soviet union would step in.

·         Soviet union recognizes Israel as independent jewish state in may 1948. Soviets believed Israel was founded on socialists principals, provided a last chance to destabilize the middle east from within.

·         This became one of the favorite arguments soviet rivals would use to beat middle eastern communist parties.

·         Stalins main concern, before his death in 1953, was the internal reconstruction of the soviet state-the doctorine of socialism in one country-and soviet forein policy.

·         1955 the US creates the Bagdad pact which brings Britain, iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and turkey into an anti-soviet alliance.

·         During cold war, middle eastern states had ability to play one superpower against the other. This mean relations were often competitive, expecially in terms of the provision of goods and services. EX: the soviet union financing the Aswan Dam in Egypt after the US wouldn’t support the project, because Egypt had ordered arms from the Soviet Union. The US would not supply any arab state with the arms giving the state the potential to defeat Israel.it took some times to make it clear the Soviet union would not sell to arab states to enable them to defeat Israel and that time of uncertainty was the heyday of arab-soviet friendship.