Britain, Oil, And The Middle East

In 1915, when the Allies were besieged on the Western front, the British wanted to create a second front against Germany, Italy and the Ottoman Empire. Turkish nationalism had spread to the rest of the Ottoman Empire and the British exploited this feeling. They promised Arab groups their own independent states, including Palestine. Secretly, the Allies planned to carve up the Ottoman Empire: France would get "Greater Syria;" Britain would get Iraq for its oil and ports, and Haifa, to distribute the oil; Palestine would be an international zone; Russia would get Constantinople.

The next British government under Lloyd George believed that "worldwide Jewry" was a powerful force, and that the Jews in the new Bolshevik government could prevent the Russian army from deserting the Allied side. This mistaken strategy, along with other factors including the persuasiveness of Chaim Weitzman, led to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which endorsed a national home for the Jews in Palestine. At the same time, the Arab leader Shariff Hussein was promised that Palestine would be part of a new Arab state. This contradiction has contributed to the ongoing struggle for control in the Holy Land.
With Prof. Lieven, London School of Economics; Prof. Choueiri, University of Exeter, and other academics."
Britain and the Struggle for the Holy Land
Film Makers Library, Middle East Studies

"At the beginning of the 20 Century King Edward VII ruled over a vast empire with interests in every part of the world. India became increasingly important because it was the second pillar of British power in the world. Moving the Indian army about was extremely important in extending British interests and British influence across the globe and the Suez canal was of course the quick way to do that. It's very important for the British geopolicital position to ensure the Suez canal remains safe and secure. With this aim in mind Britain had become the only European power to establish a major foothold in the Middle East, in the principalities around the Persian Gulf, in Aden, and in Egypt. Britain had annexed Egypt from Turkey's Ottoman empire in 1882 and by the time it was made a protectorate in 1914 Cairo had become the centre of British power in the Middle East. The presence of imperial troops in the region was of vital strategic importance, for the Ottoman Empire under the Sultan, Mohamed IV, was in alliance with Britain's much feared rival Germany. Together with the Austro Hungarian empire these countries made up the central powers, and pitted against them were the three allies - Britain, France, and Russia ......

... the fate of the Ottoman empire was to be sealed by the outbreak of the first world war in August 1914... Britian's Prime Minister Asquith felt, that with the [war's] stalemate in Europe it was essential to widen the conflict... Britain's secret plan involved on the one hand a military diversion, and on the other devious use of diplomacy through bribery, subversion and double dealing. All these devices focused on the enemy's weakest link, Turkey's Ottoman Empire ... Britain exploited a new movement sweeping through the [Ottoman] empire, nationalism ... By the start of the first world war the anatagonism between Arab and Turk had increased... By the summer of 1915 Brtish intelligence confirmed that the Arab nationalist movement was the breakthrough the government was looking for... Both the British and the French started seducing various Arab leaders [with the promise of independence if they sided with the allies]. The idea was to tempt the arabs into a revolt against their Ottoman overlords and create a diversioin which would tie down the central powers in the Middle East... The new [Arab] army was commanded by the young and carismatic [Arab leader] Feisal who had captured the imagination of the Arab masses in the quest for Arab independence. Yet even as Hussein and Feisal mobilised their troops, the British were preparing to sell them short. In London, in the spring of 1916, Britain was negotiating with France about the future shape of the Middle East. Behind close doors, Sir Mark Sykes of the British Foreign Office, had been meeting his French opposite number Francois George Picot....

Pouring over a map of the Lavant, Sykes and Picot personally drew in the areas they wished to see under their control. Their secret deal amounted to the virtual carve up of the Middle East.... [France was to have Greater Syria and] ... the area... known as Iraq with its strategic ports, railways, and oil... was to be under British rule. ... Palestine.... was envisaged as an international zone, except for Haiffa. What the British wanted was the oil of Iraq and they concentrated on getting Iraq and getting a way from Iraq to the Meditteranian in order to transport this oil. So they got Haiffa on the Palestinian coast and they got most of Iraq. ... Unaware of these secret dealings behind their backs Hussein and Feisal proclaimed independence and in June 1916 attacked the Turkish troops... The Turkish garrason at Mecca was soon overun and the sea port at Jiddha seized... In a pincer movement Britain had launched a campaign from the south west to ensure control of the Suez canal and the Lavant, and from the South East it was fighting to secure the oil wells of Iraq...

By the spring of 1917 [the British] had reached the frontier of Palestine..... Although America had so far been neutral in the war, [the new Prime Minister] Lloyd George was convinced that could be changed. He believed there was one powerful group which might influence the American government. Lloyd George thought that the Amercian decision whether to joint or not would depend critically on public opinion, and that Jewish support could tilt the scales in one direction or the other... A new Jewish nationalist movement, Zionism, had also been able to establish its headquarters in Berlin. Zionism had orgininated in the 1880s, after Theodore Hertzel published a book espousing the virtues of a Jewish state... The end of the 19th century saw the rise of anti-semitism all over Europe in Austria, in German, in France, but particularly in Eastern Europe, in Poland and in Russia .... societies in a numer of Russian cities... started to promote, and to finance, and to sponsor, colonisation, emigration, to Palestine. Hertzel came to the conclusion that the Jews were not safe anywhere in Europe and the only solution was for the Jews to have a state of their own over which they could exercise sovereignty and where they would not be a minority... Scattered throughout the world since the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in the first century AD, many Jews had cherished the idea of returning one day to what their scriptures had told them was 'the promised land'.... the whole Jewish community [in Palestine] by 1914 constituted barely 8% of the population... By early 1917 Lloyd George's view of Jews as globally influential convinced him that Zionism was another nationalist movement which should be co-opted to the allied cause.... In October the British government recieved an intelligence report suggesting that Jews were a significant influence in the leadership of the Bolshivic party, the new revolutionary movement emerging as the dominant force in Russia. Lloyd George feared that these communists would take Russia out of the war. With the Americans still refusing to commit sufficient forces, he knew it was time to act. He instructed his foreign secretary Arthur Balfour to issue a pledge to capture the hearts and minds of the Jewish people: 'His Majesty's government would favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endevours to facilitate the achievements of this object.' The Balfour declaration was issued on November 2 1917, just as British forces were occupying Palestine....

Yet Sharif Hussein has understood that Palestine had been promised as part of his deal for Arab independence... In fact, the only treaty Britain had signed in regard to Palestine was with the French, the secret Sykes-Picot agreement. On November 7, within a few days of the Balfour declaration, the Bolshevicks took power in Russia.... [However, the British assessment was incorrect as most Jews in the Bolshevic leadership were internationalists]. There were fifteen to twenty Jews in the higher eschelons of the Bolshevic party. Most of them were anti-Zionist and soon after they came to power they issued a declaration to say that Zionism is a capitalist ploy... The wildly inaccurate intelligence report on which Lloyd George based his strategy was to have major implications for Britain. Within weeks Russia's new leaders did exactly the opposite of what he had expected. Not only did they pull out of the war, they opened up the archives of the Tzarist foreign office and published the secret treaties. The very treaties Britain had engineered with her allies to carve up the Ottoman Empire, and to which Russia had been privy. That of course is a very great embarrasment to the western allies because the allies had been doing all sorts of deals behind the scenes in which they have handed out to each other large sections of the world, meawhile openly preaching that they are fighting the war in defence of democracy and of course also telling, among others, the Arabs that they are supporters of self-determination for the peoples of the Ottoman empire... At that point, of course, the arabs realised that not only had the British got their own particular interests for example in the ports of Palestine or in Iraq, but that they had promised other things to the French.... The future of Palestine in the Middle East formed part of Britain's pledge to France in the Sykes-Picot carve up.... [Moreover, in a confidential post war memorandum regarding Zionism Balfour wrote] "So far as Palestine is concerned the powers have made no declaration of policy which at least in letter they have not always intended to violate".... The Versaille peace conference [at the end of the war] was concluded on June 28, 1919, with the creation of the League of Nations.... It's covenant provided that the Arab and other territories ceaded by the defeated Ottoman Empire should be administered by mandate, which meant in effect, that Britain and France, were given the authority to impose their rule over the Arab territories.... [part] became the British mandate for trans-Jordan and Palestine. In the east the Ottoman area of Messoptamia, which included the oil fields of Mossul, was given to Britain as the mandate for Iraq. ... this was basically the importance of the Sykes-Picot agreement, to divide what was called the fertile crescent between Iraq and Syria, and let Britain get access to the oil of the area and be able to exploit it in the future.... the Balfour declaration promising Jews a homeland in Palestine had been incorporated into the British mandate at Versaille. Palestine was thus to be open for new European Jewish immigration..."

Persian Gulf Oil and Gas Exports Fact Sheet
US Department Of Energy, September 2004

Strait of Hormuz
In 2003, the vast majority (about 90%) of oil exported from the Persian Gulf transited by tanker through the Strait of Hormuz , located between Oman and Iran. The Strait consists of 2-mile wide channels for inbound and outbound tanker traffic, as well as a 2-mile wide buffer zone. Oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz account for roughly two-fifths of all world traded oil, and closure of the Strait of Hormuz would require use of longer alternate routes (if available) at increased transportation costs. Such routes include the approximately 5-million-bbl/d-capacity East-West Pipeline across Saudi Arabia to the port of Yanbu, and the Abqaiq-Yanbu natural gas liquids line across Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea. The 15.0-15.5 million bbl/d or so of oil which transit the Strait of Hormuz goes both eastwards to Asia (especially Japan, China, and India) and westwards (via the Suez Canal, the Sumed pipeline, and around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa) to Western Europe and the United States.

Bab al-Mandab
Oil heading westwards by tanker from the Persian Gulf towards the Suez Canal or Sumed pipeline must pass through the Bab al-Mandab. Located between Djibouti and Eritrea in Africa, and Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, the Bab al-Mandab connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Any closure of the Bab al-Mandab could keep tankers from reaching the Suez Canal/Sumed Pipeline complex, diverting them around the southern tip of Africa. This would add greatly to transit time and cost, and effectively tie up spare tanker capacity. In December 1995, Yemen fought a brief battle with Eritrea over Greater Hanish Island, located just north of the Bab al-Mandab. The Bab al-Mandab could be bypassed by utilizing the East-West oil pipeline. However, southbound oil traffic would still be blocked. In addition, closure of the Bab al-Mandab would effectively block non-oil shipping from using the Suez Canal, except for limited trade within the Red Sea region.

Suez/Sumed Complex
After passing through the Bab al-Mandab, oil en route from the Persian Gulf to Europe must pass either through the Suez Canal or the Sumed Pipeline complex in Egypt. Both of these routes connect the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez with the Mediterranean Sea. Any closure of the Suez Canal and/or Sumed Pipeline would divert tankers around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope), adding greatly to transit time and effectively tying up tanker capacity.

Other Export Routes
Small amounts of oil from the Persian Gulf were exported via routes besides the Strait of Hormuz in 2003. This oil was exported mainly via pipeline from Iraq's Kirkuk oil region to the Turkish port of Ceyhan and by truck to Jordan.

"Israel stands to benefit greatly from the US led war on Iraq, primarily by getting rid of an implacable foe in President Saddam Hussein and the threat from the weapons of mass destruction he was alleged to possess. But it seems the Israelis have other things in mind. An intriguing pointer to one potentially significant benefit was a report by Haaretz on 31 March that minister for national infrastructures Joseph Paritzky was considering the possibility of reopening the long-defunct oil pipeline from Mosul to the Mediterranean port of Haifa. With Israel lacking energy resources of its own and depending on highly expensive oil from Russia, reopening the pipeline would transform its economy.... All of this lends weight to the theory that Bush's war is part of a masterplan to reshape the Middle East to serve Israel's interests. Haaretz quoted Paritzky as saying that the pipeline project is economically justifiable because it would dramatically reduce Israel's energy bill. US efforts to get Iraqi oil to Israel are not surprising. Under a 1975 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the US guaranteed all Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis. The MoU, which has been quietly renewed every five years, also committed the USA to construct and stock a supplementary strategic reserve for Israel, equivalent to some US$3bn in 2002. Special legislation was enacted to exempt Israel from restrictions on oil exports from the USA. Moreover, the USA agreed to divert oil from its home market, even if that entailed domestic shortages, and guaranteed delivery of the promised oil in its own tankers if commercial shippers were unwilling or not available to carry the crude to Israel. All of this adds up to a potentially massive financial commitment. The USA has another reason for supporting Paritzky's project: a land route for Iraqi oil direct to the Mediterranean would lessen US dependence on Gulf oil supplies. Direct access to the world's second-largest oil reserves (with the possibility of expansion through so-far untapped deposits) is an important strategic objective."
Oil from Iraq : An Israeli pipedream?
Jane's Foreign Report, 16 April 2003

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