by Mehreen Saeed
August 03, 2010
from
OpinionMaker Website
|
Mehreen Saeed is a
blogger and freelance journalist based in New Jersey, USA. She
writes on current issues concerning the USA and Muslim Region of the
world.
She is a frequent contributor
to Opinion Maker. |
British Petroleum (BP) has been inundated with diatribes by our
government and media for a lack of responsible reaction during the three
months while millions of barrels of oil gushed out of
MC252 well site into the Gulf of Mexico.
Since the biggest environmental catastrophe in
the U.S. history enfolded, causing billions of dollars in damage to the
fishing and tourism industries and wildlife habitat, the corporation
executives have been trying to seek a way out of this ignominy.
In order to pay for the damages it caused to U.S. businesses and to itself,
BP will likely resort to its historic strategy of how it became an oil giant
in the first place. And the U.S. will once again help the corporation as we
did in 1953 when a covert CIA plot overthrew Iran’s democratically
elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and instated an
authoritarian regime in order to acquire that country’s oil.
The coup proved to be a successful covert experiment for the U.S. when
The National Iranian Oil Company was transformed into British
Petroleum in 1954.
Iran’s illustrious experiment was also catalytic
in helping the U.S. make similar coups a norm in various Middle Eastern and
Latin American countries including Iraq, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama to
overthrow leaders noncompliant toward imperialistic demands.
In 1979, Iran’s Islamic Revolution ousted BP from the country and attained
back its resources; but for the past few years U.S. officials have again
been looking toward Iran, which still has the world’s third largest oil
reserves. Our politicians have been pressing Iran to stymie its nuclear
enrichment program which they claim is a threat to Israel’s security
- perhaps in the same way the imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction
in Iraq were a threat to the U.S. in 2003.
In June, our powerful nation successfully
pressured
the United Nations to impose economic
sanctions on the recalcitrant Iran but such diplomatic stunts are designed
to be expired the moment corporate greed demands again.
President Obama’s diplomatic stance has been under immense pressure
from corporate lobbyists who want to send our troops to invade Iran in order
to get their grip on the country’s petroleum and natural gas. The U.S. has a
solid history of sacrificing its human and financial resources for
corporate executives; therefore, BP executives will contentedly demand
that we sacrifice our tax dollars and troops to help them steal Iran’s oil
once again.
According to many analysts invasion of Iran is imminent, and the BP fiasco
in the Gulf of Mexico might serve as a key factor to expedite that invasion.
But hopefully the American public is slightly smarter today
than we were in 2003 and will not be misled by the greedy corporate
executives.
As we stand facing harsh consequences of the two wars we started in Iraq and
Afghanistan, BP and its likes might have to turn to another soldier this
time in holding Iran accountable to pay for the catastrophe the corporation
caused.
The country that serves as BP’s next partner in
crime will be guilty of bloodshed and environmental disasters as they arise
in the future.
The only way to end the cycle of violence and
man-made environmental catastrophes is by adamantly opposing the greedy
oil executives and putting tangible emphasis on sustainable alternative
energy.