Aijaz Ahmad: The United States economy is stagnant and faces the possibility of a real Depression. Its currency has lost a quarter of its value on global markets in three years. No country in the entire history of humankind has ever owed as much money to foreigners as the US does today, and this debt rises by about a billion dollars a day. Its military expenditures are higher than those of the next twenty countries combined. It's time to question basic assumptions about US foreign policy.
TranscriptPAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR: Welcome back to our interviews with Aijaz Ahmad, asking the question, what would a rational foreign policy for the United States look like? Aijaz, at the core of much of US foreign policy is the assumption that the United States needs its military prowess to defend its oil interests, whether it's directly the interests of oil companies, or whether it's a question of pipelines, or just sort of the geopolitical strategic objectives. What would a rational policy on oil be? AIJAZ AHMAD, SENIOR NEWS ANALYST: Couple of things here, Paul. First of all, I think the oil question is the one area where it is very difficult to distinguish between domestic policy and foreign policy. Let's talk about the foreign policies side of it, and then I'll come to the domestic side. We should recognize that oil is no more important for the United States than it is for any other country, especially other industrialized countries or industrializing countries. In fact, the US has had many advantages that Japan or China don't have. So US actually speaks from a position of power and strength, including domestic production, and having resources of oil very close to its borders. JAY: A rather safe supply from its northern neighbor, Canada, the number one supplier of oil. AHMAD: That's right. That's right. That's right. And southern one in Mexico. So it has a position of strength, and its superiority in this area is not nearly as threatened as people pretend. That's one. Secondly, same thing applies here, that you have to think of a foreign policy that obtained these objectives peacefully. Just as China or Japan or India are obtaining their needs of hydrocarbons peacefully by going to any country and anywhere in the world that they can, through essentially market forces. That's what you need to do. You also have to recognize that those who produce oil and gas have one strategic interest only, which is to sell it. So it's not as if oil supplies and gas supplies are going to disappear if you don't police them. They'll be on the world market. Other countries have reconciled themselves to buy their oil and gas and whatnot. The United States should do the same.
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR: Welcome back to our interviews with Aijaz Ahmad, asking the question, what would a rational foreign policy for the United States look like? Aijaz, at the core of much of US foreign policy is the assumption that the United States needs its military prowess to defend its oil interests, whether it's directly the interests of oil companies, or whether it's a question of pipelines, or just sort of the geopolitical strategic objectives. What would a rational policy on oil be? AIJAZ AHMAD, SENIOR NEWS ANALYST: Couple of things here, Paul. First of all, I think the oil question is the one area where it is very difficult to distinguish between domestic policy and foreign policy. Let's talk about the foreign policies side of it, and then I'll come to the domestic side. We should recognize that oil is no more important for the United States than it is for any other country, especially other industrialized countries or industrializing countries. In fact, the US has had many advantages that Japan or China don't have. So US actually speaks from a position of power and strength, including domestic production, and having resources of oil very close to its borders. JAY: A rather safe supply from its northern neighbor, Canada, the number one supplier of oil. AHMAD: That's right. That's right. That's right. And southern one in Mexico. So it has a position of strength, and its superiority in this area is not nearly as threatened as people pretend. That's one. Secondly, same thing applies here, that you have to think of a foreign policy that obtained these objectives peacefully. Just as China or Japan or India are obtaining their needs of hydrocarbons peacefully by going to any country and anywhere in the world that they can, through essentially market forces. That's what you need to do. You also have to recognize that those who produce oil and gas have one strategic interest only, which is to sell it. So it's not as if oil supplies and gas supplies are going to disappear if you don't police them. They'll be on the world market. Other countries have reconciled themselves to buy their oil and gas and whatnot. The United States should do the same.
