A new musing on some old news.<\/p>\n
How and why did Cheney go from being a business dove–a leading US Oil Industry figure lobbying for an end<\/em> to US sanctions against Iran and Libya (and perhaps Iraq)–to become the leading hawk on Iraq and Iran (but, presumably, not Libya)?<\/p>\n Back on July 26, 2001, Carola Hoyos and Guy Dinmore published an article in the Financial Times<\/em> entitled “US Senate backs renewed sanctions on Iran and Libya” (can’t find it on-line, sorry).<\/p>\n Oil executives from companies such as Conoco and Chevron had high hopes that the energy sector background of Mr Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney would prompt a resumption of US business ties with Iran, which has the world’s fifth largest proven oil reserves. Mr Cheney was an especially vocal opponent of sanctions against Iran during the five years he headed Halliburton, an oil services company.<\/p>\n But in their new role, two factors<\/strong> in particular have limited their willingness to soften their stance on Iran: Russia and Israel<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Russia angle may prove to be the more decisive factor. More on that soon.<\/p>\n For now, though, amidst all the debate over the “Israel Lobby<\/a>” (the original essay seems to have been pulled from LRB website…) it is worth noting the following from a May 24, 2001 Financial Times<\/em> article by Edward Alden, “US Congress Moves to Extend Sanctions” (available on-line through a third party here<\/a>):<\/p>\n The US is set to renew its economic sanctions on Iran and Libya, perhaps for up to five years, despite the Bush administration’s promise of a thorough review of US sanctions policy.<\/p>\n The pre-emptive move by the US Congress<\/strong> will seriously complicate both the administration’s effort to re-think US sanctions, and its desire to expand US access to new oil and gas supplies from the Caspian Sea region.<\/p>\n Representative Benjamin Gilman and Howard Berman yesterday introduced legislation to extend the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) for five years<\/strong>. The bill has more than 180 co-sponsors in the House<\/strong>, and could be pushed to a vote as early as next month, well in advance of the August 5 expiry of ILSA<\/strong>.<\/p>\n On the Senate side<\/strong>, a companion bill has more than 60 co-sponsors, a solid majority<\/strong>…<\/p>\n The Bush administration had been expected to push for an easing of the Iran and Libya sanctions. US oil companies with close ties to top Bush officials, including Vice-President Dick Cheney and Commerce Secretary Don Evans<\/strong>, are eager to resume operations in oil-rich Iran<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Also, the administration immediately launched a review of sanctions policy, and has been working to ease the embargo on Iraq.<\/p>\n But congressional proponents of the sanctions regime, backed by the powerful pro-Israel lobby, have moved aggressively<\/strong> to head off any debate over ILSA.<\/p>\n William Reinsch<\/strong>, president of the National Foreign Trade Council<\/strong>, a business group that opposes sanctions<\/strong>, admits it will be “an uphill battle<\/strong>” to block extension of ILSA.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If I were the Israel Lobby (i.e., AIPAC) looking to publicize its power, I would cite this Financial Times<\/em> analysis everywhere I could.<\/p>\n The Israel Lobby delivered up a surprise veto-proof<\/em> majority in Congress against Cheney.<\/p>\n What’s a vice president to do?<\/p>\n If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.<\/p>\n The pre-emptive strike in Congress that may have prompted a pre-emptive strike in Iraq–and perhaps Iran.<\/p>\n Questions abound, among them, how\/why did the Israel Lobby either drop the ball or simply lose<\/em> more recently on the Libya issue?<\/p>\n And then there is the whole Russia question.<\/p>\n Still, I thought this bit of history might be worth remembering.<\/p>\n A new musing on some old news. How and why did Cheney go from being a business dove–a leading US Oil Industry figure lobbying for an end to US sanctions against Iran and Libya (and perhaps Iraq)–to become the leading hawk on Iraq and Iran (but, presumably, not Libya)? Back on July 26, 2001, Carola […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,3,21,10,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}