"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist--McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.... Without America on duty, there will be no America Online."

- Thomas Friedman, New York Times

As the Bush administration and the corporate media continues its march towards war with Iran, I start to see the irony in the whole thing. The middle east contains two-thirds of the worlds oil. With only 4.6% of the world's population, the United States consumes a full 25% of the world's energy. The United States consumes about 18 million barrels of oil each day. The West has been trying to contain Iran's influence in the middle east since the fall of the Turkish Empire around the early 2oth century. Heres where things get interesting.

From 1952-53, Iran's democratically elected nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq began to resist western domination over Iran's oil industry. Much of the events of 1952 were started by Mossadeq's nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now British Petroleum. Established by the British in the early 20th century, an agreement had been made to share profits (85% British-15% Iran), but the company withheld their financial records from the Iranian government. Due to alleged profit monopolization by the Anglo-Iranian Oil company, the Iranian Parliament had unanimously agreed to nationalize its holding of, what was at the time, the British Empire's largest company.

The United States and Britain, now admit their covert operation using the CIA called Operation Ajax, conducted from the US Embassy in Tehran, helped organize protests to overthrow Moussadeq and return the Shah to Iran. After a second successful operation he returned from his brief exile. Iran's fledgling attempts at democracy quickly descended into dictatorship, as the Shah dismantled the constitutional limitations on his office and began to rule as an absolute monarch. After taking control, he re-established western supremacy in the country.
Finally, the Iranian revolution took place and they overthrew the western backed Shah, took U.S. hostiges, and has since been seen as a hostile state. The U.S. has been trying to undermind and dismantle the Iranian government while contracting its influence on other oil holding actors for decades.

Now that the U.S. and Britain have hegemony over oil producing nations inlcuding Jordan, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, and now Iraq. The only independent country standing in its way is Iran. That meddling old pest from the past. Which has alligned itself with Russia and China, the two most existential threats to U.S. hyper-power status.

The United States understands the importance of dominating the middle east's oil supplies. Writer and activist Arundhati Roy puts it clearly, " Multinational corporations on the prowl for sweetheart deals that yield enormous profits cannot push through those deals and administer those projects in developing countries without the active connivance of state machinery--the police, the courts, sometimes even the army."

Indeed the Islamic Radicalism around the world is a roadblock to western dominance over middle eastern oil industries. For that matter most of the states the U.S. military and the media have dubbed "radical" are those who refuse to let the west dictate their oil industries including Venezuela. Our military policy is being designed to resist governments who don't allow the U.S. access to their markets on U.S. terms.

This dominance over the oil markets will assure the U.S. supremacy over the destiny of humankind in the 21st century, while making western companies rich...er. Oil drives our cars, flies our planes, runs our factories, heats our homes, and makes up the basic components of our plastic. Industry as we know it needs more oil, and a lot of it to continue to make profits at the rate to which they've grown accustomed. The U.S. and Britain need standing armies, sterner immigration laws and watchful coastal patrols to make sure that only money, goods, patents and services are globalized on conditions favorable to their interests.

At what costs? The comming war against Iran will result in the deaths of Iranian people. Children who want to make their parents proud, newly-weds looking forward to a life together, and college students who are hoping to make the world a better place. While the bombs fall and the chaos insues, we'll be here in the U.S. driving to work and school, in our heated homes, wacthing war coverage on CNN, 'fighting them over there so we won't have to over here'. This conflict is likely to spill over into other parts of the reigion. The U.S. military doesn't have enough forces to fight them all. But that doesn't matter. The U.S. allies lead by Britain will provide troop support under the pretext of " stablelising the region".

The price of oil will sky rise and the oil companies will get their record setting bonus at the end of the year. I'll flip between Mad Money with Jim Cramer, and CNBC. Business as usual in America thanks to the hidden fist.

America has always been a leader and model of democracy for many countries around the world. But parodoxically we have also been the unfortunate antagonist of many democracies in other countries. Take the Palestinians for instance. They had a democratic election, and elected Hamas to lead them. Voters in Lebanon elected Hezbollah to parliment. Voters in Venezuela elected Hugo Chavez. In Nicaragua the people elected Daniel Ortega. In each of these cases and many others, the United States has tried to undermind, or delegitmise these democratically elected leaders. Often they have funded oposition groups to reject the authority of these leaders, which often ends in civil strife and even chaos. Suprisingly most of the dominant media stations have framed the democratic processes in other countries as "troubling" or " worrisome".

Why are we so keen on destroying some democracies while promoting others? It appears that maybe democracy isn't what we want after all. Could it possibly be we just want favorable governments to allow the United States to have access to cheap raw materials, labor, to build military bases, and accept neo-liberal trade policy? Maybe that explains why America supports nations that don't have functioning democracies like Saudia Arabia and loathes democratically elected governments like that of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It puzzles me why a nation which is the supposed vanguard of democracy seems to be trying to destroy more than they actually support. Maybe someone out there can explain this to me?