During the Cold War, what role did oil play in driving western intervention to the Middle East?

Résumé du document

After the Second World War in 1945, a new world order came up: Western Europe had to recover from the damages the war caused, and the US and the Soviet Union were competing against each other for power in a Cold War period. During this era, lasting up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Middle East began to become a very unstable region due to the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. A traditional definition of the ‘Middle East area' would include sixteen countries from Iran to Egypt. This core region has been the biggest world oil holder for decades. In this context, it is not surprising to see that the Middle East became, during the Cold War, the theater of western interventions concerning oil. Indeed, the oil issue became a key and strategic argument, related to the new framework of the international relations.

Extraits

[...] The purpose was double: preventing the USSR from spreading its influence over the region, and bolstering the conservative local elites and monarchist regimes who were preserving the western oil interests (by maintaining the system thanks to the royalties they received from the foreign producers). At the beginning of the Cold War, many conflicts occurred in the Middle East. At the root of the political instability was the conflict between Israel and Palestine, when Ben Gourion claimed the independence of Israel in 1948. Since, Israel has to face the Arab hostility. This permanent instability played a great role in western interventions, because the Middle East became the theatre of the confrontation between the US and the USSR. [...]

[...] Many reasons can explain why they decided to intervene: the dependence on oil energy, the need to stabilize the area to prevent the spread of communist influence, and at last the US's willingness to dominate the rest of the world by controlling the oil resources. First, during the Cold War, oil was obviously a necessary resource for the European countries and the US. Moreover, the majority of oil resources were located in the Middle East. By 1960, it represented 68 per cent of the global reserves[3]. Consequently it was an easy access to a cheap and abundant energy for the industrial powers which were enjoying an economic growth. [...]

[...] However, we have to be careful: oil was not the only cause explaining western intervention. It was only part of a global process, since we have to consider the ‘balance of power' theory. Besides, as we saw, the US was the great winner of the oil crises during and after the Cold War. Consequently, they seem to have secured their future oil supply, and above all, they made a great step forward into the new confrontation they face today against China. [...]

[...] When the Shah of Iran, pro-occidental, was removed by the Islamist revolution leaded by Khomeini, the oil price rose once again, from $ 13.34 to $ 32.81 [12]. I should note that the two oil crashes in the 1970s only weakened Europe, as the US imported less than 10 per cent of their oil from the Middle East[13]. This way, the US succeeded in their goal to dominate Europe and Asia, really dependent on the Middle East's oil. These new tensions provoked the First Gulf War, in 1980, between Iran and Iraq. At the origin the dispute was based on territorial criteria. [...]

[...] The case of Iraq is clearly representative. In 1963, the General Qassem, who was leading the country, was removed by a coup organized by the national-socialist Ba'ath Party, strongly attached to the USSR. This event constituted a great threat for American interests, and gave to western countries an incentive to intervene. The interventions mainly involved the US, Britain, and France. They intervened in different ways. Indeed, even if the US intervened militarily in the Middle East, they also negotiated diplomatically. [...]