This piece was on the front page of Sunday's New York Times. It therefore, presumably, got plenty of exposure. However, it's worth reminding ourselves that the subject of this article—namely, Washington's weaponization of the Middle East—is a major factor in US regional policy that gets overlooked.
Speaking very generally, when people talk about the Middle East, the focus tends to narrow to subjects like religion, terrorism, or oil. The first is basically a non-issue, the second is a byproduct of the region's problems, and the third isn't as much of an issue as one might think.
The United States imports little of its oil from the Middle East; about 20 percent of US petroleum imports come from the Persian Gulf. And talk of oil presumes the desire to abscond with foreign supplies, commonly attributed to US motives in Iraq. During the war, many asserted that "we just want their oil." Yet, this isn't quite the case. Given Iraq's immense petroleum reserves, the interests were political leverage in Baghdad and corporate access to contracts.
Though American, European, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and other foreign firms secure contracts to operate in the Middle East, they are doing so only in this capacity. While profitable, this doesn't amount to control of resources. Crude oil belongs to the countries in which it's drilled. It is traded on the NYMEX. If you're in need of oil, you just go buy it. And the countries and corporations producing it will be happy to fulfill your order.
US involvement and influence in the Middle East has likely helped American oil firms gain access to contracts and the like. And US authority in the Persian Gulf—especially its relationship with Saudi Arabia—can influence prices. These are among the chief advantages, however, the extent of their strategic value is debatable. And any debate would have to include consideration of the trillions of dollars Washington has spent (eight of them from 1976 to 2011 according to Princeton scholar Roger Stern) on decades of military presence in the Persian Gulf.
Meanwhile, the United States has played the game of temperature control in the region: by politically keeping the Middle East hot enough to justify diplomatic and military involvement, but not so hot as to risk uncontrollable results.
Within this game, whatever tensions, conflicts, or wars arise, the United States stands at the ready to supply the weapons; US arms exports account for almost one-third of the global arms market. The current violence in Yemen, the ongoing ISIS experience, and other recent crises have been a boon to American defense contractors. According to the Sunday Times article, "Saudi Arabia spent more than $80 billion on weaponry last year—the most ever, and more than either France or Britain—and has become the world's fourth-largest defense market...."
When we survey US policy in the Middle East we see Washington spending trillions of dollars to supposedly protect the flow of oil (which it will anyway), all the while encouraging and inspiring extremism, and then doing damage control and "counterterrorism" while making sure that regional allies are buying American weaponry (often with US taxpayer money) in a context either created or exacerbated by the United States in the first place.
This article is a case of the truth being hidden in plain view.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/world/middleeast/sale-of-us-arms-fuels-the-wars-of-arab-states.html
