US Middle East oil policy pursued access, not territorial control
Evidence
In his book Oilcraft, political scientist Robert Vitalis offers a new perspective on the US’ relationship to oil in the region. He argues that between the 1940s and 1973, the belief was that US firms operating Middle East concessions would translate into a strategic good for the US state. After 1973, US policy makers talked about guaranteeing access, not control (because the private firms had lost their concessions) over oil. Thus, he argues that it was never about control over oil. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 1113
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- QUESTION: Vitalis’s claim that US policy was never about controlling oil cuts against the book’s imperial-control thesis — worth chasing whether this is a genuine empirical refutation or a framing distinction.
- XREF: Connects to earlier chapter claims that oil-driven geostrategy underlies US MENA empire (ch27, ch34) and complicates them.
Related
- US Middle East policy aimed at access to, not control of, oil (similarity 0.97)
- Middle East oil control drives virtually every US regional intervention (similarity 0.82)
- America’s case for Middle East intervention rested on disputed oil arguments (similarity 0.82)
- US foreign policy has never genuinely pursued Middle East democracy (similarity 0.80)
- Gulf oil monarchy security, not democracy, drives US Mideast policy (similarity 0.80)
- US policymakers articulated a doctrine that whoever controls the Middle East controls the world (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- US oil policy pursued access rather than direct control
#corroborates(1.00)