Ambassador JAMES AKINS: Is there likely to be another war in the Persian Gulf area? And the answer is yes. In fact, I think it's close to a certainty. Will the United States then get involved? I think there's a high probability that the United States will be involved.

Rep. LEE HAMILTON (D-IN): I think they do look to the United States to be their protector and they're very confident, even in the absence of formal treaty language, that if they are endangered, we will come to their rescue. And as I've suggested, I think they're probably right in that calculation.

NARRATOR: Fighting a war in the Persian Gulf? Didn't we just win a war there two years ago? Didn't the United States inflict "the mother of all defeats" on Saddam Hussein? Now it appears that the United States is getting ready for Desert Storm II. To paraphrase the popular movie, "The Terminator," it looks like we'll be back.

What's going on?

Admiral GENE LaROCQUE: Welcome once again to "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR."

There's an old saying that every war contains the seeds of the next war. And indeed, there's considerable concern here in Washington that we may indeed be drifting into war again in the Middle East. It is an area of ancient animosities, weapons are being dumped into the area at an unprecedented rate, and we receive a lot of our oil from the Middle East. 

Are we going to go to war again in the Middle East? Our program is on that subject today.

NARRATOR: When the fighting ended in 1991, the United States celebrated. The victory over Iraq was acclaimed for liberating Kuwait, defeating an aggressor, ensuring Western access to oil, and paving the way for peace and stability in the Persian Gulf region. With the passage of time, however, it appears that the United States is preparing a sequel to Operation Desert Storm.

As the highly respected chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Lee Hamilton is a key player in shaping U.S. foreign policy. He believes that in the aftermath of the U.S.-Iraq war, the United States is deeply committed to the defense of oil-rich Gulf nations.

Rep. HAMILTON: My view is that we're right back where we started from. They fully expect that if they become the subject of aggression again, they will blow the whistle and we will come, and I think they're probably right.

NARRATOR: Since the end of the Gulf War, military planners have seen Desert Storm as the benchmark against which the most likely future conflicts are measured. They seem to assume that another war in the Gulf is almost a certainty. The U.S. Central Command, the unified command responsible for fighting in that region, believes it will likely be called upon to fight another oil war.

HOWARD TEICHER: We come down to a three-letter word, and that three-letter word is oil. We have to be honest about it. And I know there is a tendency among many not to be honest about it, but that's what this is all about.

NARRATOR: Howard Teicher dealt with Middle East issues as a member of the National Security Council staff from 1982 to '86. He served as director for Near East and South Asian Affairs and as senior director for Political-Military Affairs. He is the author of a forthcoming book on U.S. Middle Eastern policy.

Even before the war ended, government-sponsored think tanks such as the Rand Corporation were analyzing, on behalf of the Central Command, just how many U.S. military personnel needed to be stationed in the region in the future.

Secretary of Defense LES ASPIN (7 January '93, Confirmation Hearing before Senate Armed Services Committee): 

"We know how many troops, how many divisions, how many carrier task forces, how many tactical air wings we needed for Desert Shield/Desert Storm. So, that was one block of the building blocks."

NARRATOR: Secretary of Defense Les Aspin has proposed a force structure which has as its basic building block the ability to fight another Desert Storm, as well as two smaller wars elsewhere.

The Pentagon views the Persian Gulf in much the same way famed bank robber Willie Sutton looked at banks: It's where the money is. To the military, the threat of another war in the Persian Gulf is, among other things, a convenient justification for resisting further cuts in budgets and forces.

In the view of some observers, this emphasis on being able to fight again in the Gulf only serves to perpetuate a long-standing U.S. interventionist tradition, including support for repressive governments. This tradition, however, can lead to disastrous consequences.

LEON HADAR: We are committed today to the Saudis in the same way that we were committed to the Iranians. And the same problems, the same catches that led eventually to the fall of the Shah, I think, at some point or another, are going to weaken the Saudi regime and threaten U.S. interests in the long run.

NARRATOR: Leon Hadar is a former UN bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post and author of "Quagmire: America in the Middle East." He teaches at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C.

Chairman Hamilton notes that the U.S. military is ready to ride to the rescue.

Rep. HAMILTON: I don't think we have any treaty commitment, as such, but I don't think there's much doubt either that if any of those countries in the Gulf -- Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or others -- were attacked and under seige that we would go to their defense.

NARRATOR: Ambassador James Akins had a distinguished career in the U.S. Foreign Service. He held numerous assignments in the Middle East and was U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. 

He believes that one result of Desert Storm, the re-drawing of the Iraq-Kuwait boundary by the United Nations, increases the probability of a new war.

Ambassador AKINS: The Iraqis are not reconciled to the new line and it's extremely important to understand that no Iraqi will ever accept that new line. It deprives them of the use of Umm Qasr, which is the only outlet of Iraq to the sea. It was done quite deliberately in order to deprive them of this. Basra, their other port, is on the Shatt al-Arab River, which has not been usable since 1980. They have to have Umm Qasr. No Iraqi government after Saddam, whether it's royalist, or democratic, or -- or any government is going to accept this new border.

NARRATOR: Others believe war can only be avoided if the United States builds up a far greater military presence in the region.

Mr. TEICHER: I think that the prospects for more violence in the Persian Gulf, including a U.S. military role, remain great unless and until the United States builds up a sizable, permanent military presence.

NARRATOR: Howard Teicher wants the Central Command to expand its bases and forces in the region. 

Mr. TEICHER: I would like to see established a base infra-structure in the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent countries to support at least a division of armor, a tactical air wing, to be able to provide support to a carrier battle group. I would recom-mend the emplacement of cruise missiles in the peninsula and I would recommend the permanent stationing of a U.S. AWACS element.

NARRATOR: AWACS are electronic surveillance planes that track other aircraft.

But, U.S. military forces in the region create sensitive problems for their hosts.

Ambassador AKINS: Our military actions in the area were very difficult for the country to accept. The king of Saudi Arabia is the protector of the two holy shrines of Mecca and Medina. And to have the protector of the two holy shrines being protected by an outside country, the United States, which at the same time is the main protector of the usurper of the third holy Muslim shrine, namely Jerusalem, puts them in an extremely diffi-cult theological position.

NARRATOR: Not many people realize that the Pentagon is already hard at work to strengthen its presence in the Persian Gulf region. The oil fires were not even out in Kuwait when then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney arrived in Saudi Arabia seeking permission to store military equipment there. Although that permission has not been granted, the United States has signed access agreements with three other countries in the region: Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The United States also renewed an earlier agreement with Oman.

Mr. TEICHER: The United States today has a loose structure of bilateral agreements that have been concluded with the coun-tries of the region which grant U.S. forces different types of rights to use facilities in different types of contingencies.

NARRATOR: Chairman Hamilton points out that Congress was only informed after the fact.

Rep. HAMILTON: I think, largely, the agreements that have been signed in the Gulf have been worked out by the administra-tion and we've been informed about it.

NARRATOR: The agreement with Kuwait, for example, provides for stockpiling equipment, joint training and periodic exercises.

U.S. Military Trainer: "Go like this. Hit it with your foot. Boom!"

Another U.S. Trainer: "You got to wait 'til that grenade goes off. Then the first man moves across."

Spokesperson for Trainees: "Every new training can give a good benefit for the soldier. And the Marines have a good experience in this kind of training."

NARRATOR: Although they received little attention, joint exercises, such as "Native Fury 1992," were designed to test the unloading of military equipment.

Mr. TEICHER: There is also some modest prepositioning of equipment, petroleum, oil and lubricants, and other so-called consumables. These are all valuable commodities that would be very useful in a conflict.

NARRATOR: The public seems largely unaware of these military preparations.

INTERVIEWER: Did you know that we are prepositioning tanks and armored vehicles in the Persian Gulf area?

WOMAN-in-the-Street: No, I didn't know that.

MAN-in-the-Street: No, I didn't know that either.

MAN-in-the-Street: No, I didn't know there were any new initiatives. Outside of what happened as a result of the '91 armed conflict, I wasn't aware of any new initiatives in the Middle East.

NARRATOR: The Army is reportedly preparing to deploy its heavy armor to the Gulf far more rapidly than it did in Desert Storm. The Army plans to dispatch a permanent floating force of tanks and armored personnel carriers to the Indian Ocean. It would arrive within two weeks after an order to deploy. When there is no crisis, the floating depot would be moored at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

The Congressional Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus reports that the United States now has more than ten times the forces in the Gulf it had before the war.

Mr. HADAR: Unfortunately, there hasn't been any serious debate either in the Congress or the media over these issues and you wonder whether the public really is aware of what the U.S. is doing there. And especially, again, at a time when we are talking about export of democracy and so on, we are committed to probably the most medieval regime in the region, in the world, I would say, which is Saudi Arabia.

MAN-in-the-Street: I hope that we're not placing the need for oil above the need -- the cost of human life.

NARRATOR: War-fighting preparations are not cheap. Indepen-dent analysts have calculated that the annual military cost of ensuring access to Persian Gulf oil is about $70 billion.

Aside from materiel prepositioned in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, the United States also has another source of weaponry to draw on. Since the end of the war against Iraq, the United States has been selling weapons at a feverish pace to various countries in the region.

Ambassador AKINS: The Saudis and others are buying huge amounts of American equipment, much of which they will not be able to use effectively themselves. It will be there in place and we could use it if we have to come back again.

Mr. HADAR: The U.S. sold close to $40 billion worth of arms packages and so on to Saudi Arabia. You know, part of it is, of course, to kind of sustain the military-industrial complex in this country, if you will, and part of it is to give, of course, this kind of very superficial sense to the Saudis that, you know, they're stronger militarily, although we know that they're never going to seriously use those weapons.

Broadcast Reporter: "Iraqi soldiers fill the square across from the Sheraton Hotel in Kuwait City..."

NARRATOR: Since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the United States has sold or transferred over $40 billion worth of weapons to seven Middle Eastern countries. Almost two-thirds of this has been authorized since former President Bush announced a Middle East arms control initiative in May 1991 which called for curbing the spread of "destabilizing" conventional weapons.

Chairman Hamilton thinks this is hypocritical.

Rep. HAMILTON: We talk a good game on restraint, but we don't play a very good game. And in the terminology of sandlot baseball, it's all lined up and no pitch.

We always rationalize the arms sales on the basis that it will enable the countries better to defend themselves. But, you know, if you look back over a period of years, that's been the rationale for many, many years. Those countries were not able to defend themselves for five minutes when Saddam Hussein came across the line.

Mr. TEICHER: There is an arms race going on in the Persian Gulf. It is not to our advantage to see this arms race. It would be more advantageous for us, in some respects, to disarm the Gulf and establish ourself as the preeminent power, as we're doing in Somalia, at least for the short term.

NARRATOR: All these weapons and military preparations raise an obvious question: Just exactly who or what is the United States preparing to fight? There are no clear answers. When asked, some officials make vague references to an Iraq which has rebuilt its military, or "Islamic fundamentalism," or a rearmed and aggressive Iran. 

Are these real threats or just bogeyman? Islamic Fundamentalism, for example, sounds ominous, but what is it?

Islamic Fundamentalism

Ambassador AKINS: There is a problem, of course, with this term, "fundamentalism." And what exactly is fundamentalism and should we use this? If you talk about militant Islam, it's probably a more accurate term. The Saudis have always maintained that they are the fundamentalists, they are the ones who've gone back to the fundamentals of the Koran.

NARRATOR: Ambassador Akins believes that Western fears are overblown.

Ambassador AKINS: I've long believed that the problem is going to solve itself eventually because I think that it's an irrational movement. I think the idea that the Koran is going to be able to solve all of the problems of the 20th Century or the 21st Century is naive. People have turned back to Islam because the modern ideologies, the so-called Christian ideologies of capitalism and communism, which are considered Christian, or nationalism, all of these have failed and now they perhaps were too hasty in giving up their Islamic roots, they're turning back to them.

NARRATOR: Howard Teicher views the phrase "Islamic funda-mentalism" as meaningless.

Mr. TEICHER: "Islamic fundamentalism" is many things to many different people. There is Shia fundamentalism. There is Sunni fundamentalism. There is fundamentalism that is strictly religious and there is fundamentalism that is radically political.

WOMAN-in-the-Street: As a woman, it represents a very severe threat just I think, ideologically speaking. Not that it's going to threaten me, but the fact that women are forced to wear certain garments and not able to do certain things affects me personally and probably other women. But as far as like me, in the United States, it doesn't, no.

MAN-in-the-Street: Our intervention in their internal affairs of those governments has fueled a hatred towards the United States and that may show itself in terrorist acts towards Americans or the United States. And in that way, there may be a threat from Islamic fundamentalism.

Mr. TEICHER: We have to assess what Islamic fundamentalism means for our interests and for the countries in the region on a country-by-country basis and on a religious group-by-religious group basis. And it's really inappropriate to try and generalize.

NARRATOR: That has not stopped commentators in the United States from doing so.

Mr. HADAR: There is an attempt in the West, and especially in the United States, to use the term Islamic fundamentalism to describe all those groups, to create an impression as though a kind of monolithic Islamic crescent is emerging in the Middle East stretching from North Africa to the borders of China and even posing dangers to the periphery of the Middle East, like Western Europe, the Horn of Africa, and so on.

NARRATOR: As Leon Hadar notes, in some cases, Islamic fundamentalists are, in fact, long-time U.S. friends.

Mr. HADAR: If anything, the Saudi regime, aligned with the (inaudible word) there, is the epitome of Islamic fundamentalism. But to paraphrase FDR, there are Islamic fundamentalists, but they're our Islamic fundamentalists.

NARRATOR: Iraq has been the focus of conflict in the recent past.

MAN-in-the-Street: Well, I think the problem over there is Saddam and the quicker we do something about him, the better.

MAN-in-the-Street: I wonder if Bosnia was sitting under a big glob of oil if we wouldn't be there now. Who knows?

INTERVIEWER: What do you think would be a valid reason to go to war again in the Persian Gulf area?

MAN-in-the-Street: Oh, boy. The pat answer is a direct threat to American national security, but I'm not sure we've ever had a good definition of what American national security is.

NARRATOR: Now we hear talk of other dangers in the region.

Ambassador AKINS: The other danger, of course, is a resur-gent Iran, which is considerably stronger now than it was before.

Mr. TEICHER: Iran is a powerful country that has historic-ally sought to be the hegemonic power in the Persian Gulf region. It has the largest population in the region. It has the longest border of any country with the former Soviet Union, now the Central Asian republics. It has the most people, the most oil, great quantities of money and natural resources, and it certainly today is applying a tremendous amount of energy to restore its military strength, which would enable it to threaten American as well as regional interests in the Persian Gulf.

NARRATOR: Some view the prospect of Iran playing a greater role in the Gulf as perfectly natural.

Mr. HADAR: It's pursuing its national interests in Central Asia, which is its backyard, and, of course, in the Gulf. Iran wants to play a role in the security of the Gulf, and I think that's legitimate from an Iranian point of view. My guess would be that even if the Shah of Iran would have been now in power in Teheran, he would probably pursue the same kind of policy.

NARRATOR: If Iraq and Islamic fundamentalism are not the threats we've been led to believe, then why are we preparing to go to war?

Mr. TEICHER: I don't believe, regardless of the rhetoric, that the United States went to war to liberate Kuwait from the grip of Iraq because we felt Sheik Jabir might become a leader of the international human rights movement and a force for demo- cracy. We went to war in the Gulf and we may have to go to war in the Gulf again to protect our access to the region's oil.

Rep. HAMILTON: If an aggressor comes at those oil fields, we are going to find it necessary to move in to defend. It's a vital interest of the United States. We're all addicted in this country. We're addicted to gasoline and we get an awful lot of it from the Gulf and so does the rest of the world.

NARRATOR: Chairman Hamilton believes that some of the causes of the first Gulf war still exist.

Rep. HAMILTON: A lot of the things that we talked about during the war are not being addressed. One of the driving forces of instability in the region is the enormous disparity in wealth. Nothing really has happened there. Another driving force of instability is the lack of any kind of accountability or respect for human rights or democracy, as we would put it. Nothing's happened there much either.

NARRATOR: Even those who call for ensuring access to oil via military means concede that other steps are necessary.

Mr. TEICHER: There is no military solution. Military instruments are manifestations of political will and must be coupled with a clear political strategy and political vision. Typically, that has been lacking from our employment of force in the Middle East.

NARRATOR: Chairman Hamilton also believes that relying primarily on military means ensure access to oil is short-sighted.

Rep. HAMILTON: Well, we've had our head stuck in the sand on an energy policy in this country for a long time and we've never made the connection between our foreign policy obligations, defending the Gulf, and our energy policy at home. We've got to begin to make that connection. 

As long as we are as dependent as we are on the oil resources of the Middle East, we will never really have freedom of action in the Gulf. We will have to defend the Gulf in order to defend our way of life here.

NARRATOR: Of course, we could simply rethink our assumptions.

Mr. HADAR: The end of the cold war has provided the United States really with an opportunity to reexamine its place in the world, in general, and in the Middle East and in the Gulf, in particular.

NARRATOR: That, however, would mean a radical change in business as usual.

Mr. HADAR: There are too many players in Washington and in the region that are interested in maintaining the status quo and they are going to put a lot of pressure on the administration to continue with that.

NARRATOR: The United States now stands at a crossroad. It can continue on its present course of being the guardian of the Gulf, militarily intervening whenever there is an actual or a threatened crisis. Or, it can take steps to reduce its oil depen-dence and use diplomacy to defuse regional tensions. Which road we take will determine whether we are at peace or war in the Gulf in the future.

Admiral LaROCQUE: Well, many people, including military professionals, are surprised at the military build-up in the Middle East. A lot of our armaments are being dumped into many of the Middle Eastern countries from all over the world. Many of those armaments come from the United States. There's not much we can do about the animosities that prevail in the area of the world. The question is: Should we become militarily involved once again in the Middle East? We've gone to war over there primarily for oil. And as long as we continue to rely so heavily on Middle Eastern oil, there is an increasing likelihood that we will once again become involved in a war in the Middle East for oil. The decision is really up to us.

Until next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Gene LaRocque.

[Over credits]

Rep. HAMILTON: I think they do look to the United States to be their protector. And they're very confident, even in the absence of formal treaty language, that if they are endangered, we will come to their rescue. And as I've suggested, I think they're probably right in that calculation.
 

Produced by the Center for Defense Information 
Scriptwriter: David Isenberg 
Segment Producer: Glenn Baker 
Show Number: 625