Morality should matter in US' Gulf policy

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-280214.html



Morality should matter in US' Gulf policy
By Hossein Askari
Feb 28, '14

The United States' policy objectives in the Gulf since the end of World War II should come as no surprise - stability, a free flow of oil, and growing economies. Morality never comes up, but the US forgets morality at its own peril. It is only a matter of time before the America policymaking establishment will have to emerge from its comatose state.

The United States has been, and continues to be, entirely focused on short-run stability in large part because of corporate and personal business interests in the region. American companies buy and refine oil from the Gulf and sell billions of dollars worth of arms and other goods to the region; influential Americans (including former presidents and cabinet members), lobbyists and universities receive hundreds of millions of dollars annually in retainer fees, gifts and charitable donations; financial institutions manage and advise on trillions of dollars of Gulf external investments; and thousands of Americans have found gainful employment with their savings flowing back to the United States.

These are significant economic interests that cannot be easily dismissed. Turmoil would undoubtedly endanger them.

So to avoid turmoil, the United States holds its nose and supports dictators and all associated evils - oppression, human rights abuse, corruption, the pillage of oil wealth by rulers and their cronies and on and on. And then the US points to stability as its policy success, forgetting what the abuse really means for its own longer-term interests and for the inhabitants of the region.