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AT-ME Dependence Good

The aff lets the U.S. maintain a presence in the Middle East without unwanted alliances

ÁNGEL GONZÁLEZ 6/27/12 The Wallstreet Journal: “Expanded Oil Drilling Helps U.S. Wean Itself From Mideast.” http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304441404577480952719124264

U.S. officials stress that the Middle East will remain important to American foreign policy partly because of the region's continuing influence on global oil prices. "We need to continue to pay attention to how global markets function, because we have a fundamental interest that those markets are stable," Mr. Pascual said.¶ That means the U.S. military will keep guarding the region's oil shipping lanes, as it has done for decades. "Nobody else can protect it and if it were no longer available, U.S. oil prices would go up," said Michael O'Hanlon, a national security expert with the Brookings Institution, who says the U.S. spends $50 billion a year protecting oil shipments. But China, a growing consumer of Middle Eastern crude, is seeking a larger presence in the region, with its navy joining antipiracy efforts near Somalia.¶ Canada's Role¶ Canada's oil-sands deposits hold the world's third largest reserves of crude oil, behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Canada, meanwhile, is the largest exporter of oil into the U.S., the world's biggest oil consumer. That's promising to make Canadian-U.S. energy cooperation as important as it's ever been.¶ Still, growing domestic energy production could allow the U.S. to lessen its focus on the unpredictable region over time. Dependence on Middle East oil has shaped American foreign, national-security and defense policies for most of the last half century. It helped drive the U.S. into active participation in the search for Arab-Israeli peace; drove Washington into close alignments with the monarchies of the Persian Gulf states; compelled it to side with Iraq during its war with Iran; prompted it to then turn against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait, bringing about the first Persian Gulf war; and prompted Washington to then build up and sustain its military presence in the region.¶ Whatever the success such strategies had in ensuring American influence in the region, all also came at a price. Involvement in the Arab-Israeli peace process brought the U.S. the enmity of many of the region's most radical forces upset at the failure to create a Palestinian state. The decision to build up an American military presence in the region was used as a rationale for anti-American agitation and attacks by al Qaeda and other extremist forces.¶ The shift away from Middle Eastern oil means closer ties with Canada, which is emerging as the top U.S. energy ally, but also with Latin neighbors that are strong trading partners. A dollar spent buying oil from these countries is more likely to end up back in the U.S. than a dollar spent buying Iraqi or Saudi crude. Economies buoyed by petrodollars also lessen the appeal of northward migration for Latin America's poor, says Jeremy Martin, director of the energy program at the Institute of the Americas in La Jolla, Calif.

AT: ME Stable

The Middle East is inherently unstable due to religious conflicts

CENTER FOR REDUCTION OF RELIGIOUS-BASED CONFLICT no date (Hotspots-Middle East, http://www.center2000.org/hotspots-middle-east/ )

This area of the world is sizzling. And, there appears to be no end in sight. While religious-based conflict may not be the core reason for the conflicts there in every instance, it surely is, at the very least, a basic influence and a major underpinning. The Middle East region of the world is a good example of why religious tolerance alone cannot and will not reduce religious-based conflict. To the contrary, it gives the paramount support for the Center’s approach, going beyond tolerance to attack this problem. So, the world must go forward by, among other things, emphasizing education in the direction of teaching the value of finding and emphasizing those common threads of similarity of religions rather than emphasizing the differences – though they certainly exist. Judaism versus Islam Conflict, in which the Jews as a religious group were involved, in this part of the world, goes back more than 3,000 years, and is historically documented in the Jewish and Christian Old Testaments, among other records. History reveals that this conflict among these Semite neighbors in the Middle East has had at its heart the overemphasis of religious differences between Islam and Judaism. Even though, until the advent of the modern country of Israel as a de jure Jewish nation in 1948, the Jews, as many other religions, had not escaped conflict and violence throughout the world from other sources as well. The establishment of Israel, however, focused back – for the first time in centuries – their conflict almost exclusively in the Middle East. And, the cost was high for both sides. After the 1948 War, more than 700,000 Jews in 8 Arab countries were forced flee for their lives, their property ransacked, and their schools, hospitals, synagogues and cemeteries expropriated or destroyed. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were either forced from their lands after the UN founding of the state of Israel, or tragically, have remained quarantined in squalid camps sustained by UN and Arab countries’ aid. Of all those countries, only one country, Jordan, has extended citizenship to the Palestinians. While many might argue that the Arab-Israeli Wars of the latter part of the 20th century, and the subsequent unstable and violent situation have not been religious-based in nature, it appears the genesis of these conflicts was. Not seldom do initially religious-based conflicts subsequently take on a separate life of their own. Though no major Arab-Israeli wars have erupted in the last decade, there remains in the Middle East a tinder-box tension. This is particularly true since the renewal of the Israel/Palestine fighting in 2000. Lives are lost almost daily – on one side, or both – and billions of dollars are spent in support of military establishments and their adventures which could otherwise have been focused on the immediate and humanitarian needs of those peoples. For instance, on the Jewish side, the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz reported that the Moslem Intifada begun in 2000 had cost Israel more than $2.4 billion in lost revenue between the period October 2000 and December 2001. Besides lost tourism, a substantial amount of this money was lost because of the number of Palestinian workers in Israel dropped from an average of 124,000 in the 3rd quarter of 2000 to only 4,000 in the final 2 quarters of 2001, likewise increasing the burden of lost income on the Moslem side. However, the Jewish/Islamic conflict is not limited to the Middle East. In late December, 2000, two Islamic men stopped a school bus carrying 50 Jewish children between the ages of 8 and 10 at gunpoint near Paris, France, and residents of the mainly Arab suburb stoned the vehicle. It was believed that the incident was related to some 200 attacks against Jews or Jewish property by Moslems in France earlier that year in October. In fact, according to a French government report issued in early 2002, acts of violence against the Jews increased from one in 1998 to nine in 1999 to 116 in 2000. If one includes other anti-Semitic incidents, ranging from threats to arson, the numbers went from 74 in 1998 to 603 in 2000. In early 2002 the conflict between the Jews and Moslems outside of the Middle East took a new turn for the worst. On March 30th 15 young masked Moslem immigrants in Lyons, France rammed stolen cars through a Jewish synagogue’s front gate, crashing into the temple’s front doors. The security guard was punched in the face and kicked in the ribs. It was one of more than 300 anti-Jewish incidents in France, home of 6 million Moslems, in a 3 week period, compared with 200 in all of 2001. Sharp increases in attacks on Jews were reported in Britain, Russia and Belgium as well. Some called this a new wave of anti-Semitism in Europe. Later in 2002 and into 2003 the violence in the Middle East escalated sharply. There were attacks and counter attacks between the Palestinians and Israelis. Innocent men, women and children died by the hundreds on both sides. In June, 2003 at the urging of the U.S. President George W. Bush, the two sides again sat together to attempt to bring peace to the area. While this attempt showed initial short-term success, it quickly diminished again into violence. In late 2003, suicide car bombers attacked two synagogues in downtown Istanbul, Turkey killing 23 people and injuring more than 80. One explosion went off outside the Neve Shalom Synagogue, the city’s largest. The other severely damaged the Beth Israel Synagogue in the affluent district of Sisli, three miles away. This was not the first time the Neve Shalom Synagogue had been attacked. In 1986 gunmen had killed 22 worshippers and wounded 6 others during a Sabbath service there. 2012 and early 2013 have not been substantially different. Continuing pressure against (not only) Israel from Iran via its surrogates Hamas and Hezbollah shows no end. The conflict Israel and the world have over the constructing new Israeli settlements on land both Israel and Palestine claim as their own remains complex and dangerous. The now more than two-year internal conflict in Syria poses potential danger to the entire Middle East area should it explode across Syrian borders. The change in governments in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and well as the ongoing conflict in Bahrain between the Sunni-led government and the majority Shiite citizens sees no immediate solution. These and more not only threaten general stability in the area but the existence of the state of Israel as well. These trends, both within and without the Middle East, have not changed in recent years.

ISIS causing instability in Iraq and Syria – growing through ex iraqi soldiers

World Review 6/26/14(ISIS advance in Iraq poses threat to regional instability, http://www.worldreview.info/content/isis-advance-iraq-poses-threat-regional-instability )

ISIS, the al-Qaeda affiliated extremist group sweeping through Iraq on its way to the capital, Bagdhad, is a coalition of the willing, writes a World Review guest expert. They are ideologically-dominated Islamist extremists and disgruntled former Sunni Iraqi army officers who lost their jobs and privileges when they were disbanded by the United States. These Saddam-era forces are highly trained, very experienced, battle-hardened and thoroughly disciplined. It was a grave error to dismiss ISIS - the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - as a mere al-Qaeda affiliate or another local manifestation of a global terrorist group which could be contained locally. The military men in ISIS are not necessarily fanatic religionists, but are generally Arab nationalists in ideology and strongly Sunni Muslim in sentiment and religion, imbibed with the spirit of pan Arab unity and pride. The former Sunni Iraqi army officers lost their jobs after the American Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq - the de facto head of state post-occupation in 2003-2004 - disbanded the Iraqi Armed Forces. Their coalition with extreme jihadist terrorists will last for as long as Iraq has no effective and inclusive government, and for as long as Iraq’s government - and regional and Western powers - continue to pretend that ignoring the wishes of Iraq's Sunni population will have little impact on regional security and stability. The underlying cause for ISIS's strength lies, to some degree, in the fact that this disgruntled group has found no meaningful role in the post-2003 political life in Iraq. They have been marginalised and sought any incubator which allowed them to martial such resentment into organised armed action. Short of real and effective political power-sharing in Iraq, this group is unlikely to be pacified. Continued political sectarianism by the Shia government will only exasperate the extremist threat with the possibility that Iraq will splinter into three regions. ISIS and Sunni militant forces have seized a series of towns and cities in the north and west, including border crossings, since an offensive took control of Iraq’s second city, Mosul, on June 4, 2014. The capture of key border crossings could help ISIS transport weapons and equipment into Iraq. More than 1,000 people, most of them civilians, have died in the violence in June 2014, according to United Nations monitors. ISIS took control of Iraq’s main oil refinery at Baiji on June 24, 2014. It is Iraq’s largest refinery producing a third of its oil. ISIS aims to establish an Islamic caliphate across Iraq and the Levant. Its capture of a swathe of territory seems unstoppable. ISIS has effectively created a cohesive and continuous territorial arc from the Iraqi-Syrian-Turkish border to the north of Iraq to the Iraqi-Syrian-Jordanian border to the west. Whether ISIS will be able to push towards the great prize of Kirkuk, where a good deal of Iraq's oil and refining capacity exists, is unlikely.

Israel-Palestine conflict continuing to escalate, causing instability

Lyndon LaRouche 7/12/14 (founder of the LaRouche political movement, Israel's Action in Gaza: 'Is This Not a War Crime?' , http://larouchepac.com/node/31286 , July 12, 2014 )

Netanyahu has made it clear that if rocket (not guided missile) fire out of Gaza does not end, there will be a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. In my opinion this will be a large search and destroy operation employing a lot of infantry-supported armor that will be heavily provided with artillery and air support. In my opinion a decision to conduct such an operation in an area that contains 1.6 million people, most of them civilians, is a decision to inflict mass casualties on that population. In my opinion that decision is motivated by a desire to destroy the unity government now in effect in the Palestinian Authority. Is this not a war crime?"¶ More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in four days, with more than 600 injured. The Israeli operation is following the same lines as the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead that failed to destroy Hamas and killed thousands of Palestinians, and the 2012 8-day operation against Gaza which also failed to destroy Hamas.¶ The U.S. is "offering" to mediate, but neither side is interested in anything Obama and Kerry are saying. For Netanyahu, who is carrying out the British perpetual war strategy, there are no constraints on what Israel can do, and that was clear when Obama shut down the peace talks in April 2014, when the Israelis walked out after the PLO and Hamas reached a unity agreement.¶ Intelligence sources with high-level channels to several Palestinian leaders, and Israeli sources told LaRouchePAC that they are extremely worried that traditional back-channels — not very strong to begin with — that had functioned to end previous military engagements, are not functional at all. With the countries that surround Israel and Palestine either in a state of instability or outright war, there are no ready ways to mediate.¶ The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, presented a fact sheet to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah on July 10th that asserts that the Israeli campaign really began on June 13, the day after three Jewish settler youth had been kidnapped on the West Bank. Fourteen Palestinians had been killed by Israelis, either security forces or settlers, before this week's bombing campaign had even begun, and 900 Palestinians were arrested, including minors and elected members of the Palestinian legislative council.¶ The fact sheet says:¶ "Israeli occupation forces have conducted incursions in nearly all Palestinian cities, resulting in confrontations with the Palestinian civilian population. During said incursions, Israeli occupation forces invaded hundreds of Palestinian homes, raided university campuses, attacked media and civil society institutions."¶ It also includes names of those killed (82 of them, including many children and women), as well as prominent figures who have been arrested.¶ The fighting escalated, Friday, with the first rocket fire coming from Lebanon, to which Israel immediately responded with rocket and artillery fire. Netanyahu is — without evidence — blaming the northern attack on Hezbollah, while an account in the Israeli media quotes the Lebanese military saying they had found and dismantled rocket launchers that had been used by other radical Islamic fighters.¶ Iron Dome Enables Israeli Genocide Against Palestinians¶ Ha'aretz blogger Uri Misgav posted an extraordinary article early Friday morning, Israeli time, in which he argues that the Iron Dome anti-rocket system may protect Israelis from rockets fired by militants in Gaza, but it also buys something much more pernicious.¶ "It enables Israelis to feel protected while continuing their life almost without a hitch," Misgav writes. "They can blow up their feelings of victimization and misery to new heights, while going on about their business relatively comfortably."¶ He characterizes the Iron Dome as "Israel's doomsday weapon" which enables Israeli governments¶ "to launch a 'limited operation' once every two years, to refill the hatred and demonization reserves and renew the confidence of their obedient subjects, who only a day or two ago began to realize that their government was deceiving them."¶ Misgav ridicules the Israeli government's claim that it is exercising "restraint" in its bombing campaign against the Palestinians.¶ "Restraint? I'd like to see how Israelis would act and speak if just once an F-16 squadron swooped down on a residential neighborhood and dropped a ton of smart bombs on it."¶ The Iron Dome, Misgav writes, not only intercepts missiles,¶ "Apparently it intercepts free thought as well. It dooms its users to blindness, deafness and dementia," he writes. "If our leaders really want them [that is, the people who live within rocket range of Gaza] to have quiet, they must strive courageously and creatively for an overall solution," Misgav concludes.¶ "They must install above us all the iron dome of a negotiated political settlement. But apparently it doesn't pay to manufacture such an item."