Toby Jones - Rutgers

At Green Night Out on January 14, Toby Jones, Assistant Professor of History at Rutgers University, discussed “The Long War: Oil and U.S. Power in the Middle East.”

Jones explained to the diners that the U.S. War for Oil dates back to Democratic President James Carter’s declaration of the Carter Doctrine in1980. He told of the creation of Pentagon’s Central Command, its military occupation of Afghanistan in 2001 and its occupation of Iraq in 2003. According to Jones, this has been one long war, not a series of military conflicts.

The Pentagon now has military bases in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Jones also discussed various U.S. military maneuvers in the Middle East, only some of which have been successful.

The diners then discussed who benefits from the tremendously expensive War for Oil. Clearly, it has been no benefit to the people of the Middle East, and U.S. taxpayers will never see an equivalent return for what they have invested in the War for Oil over the last 30 years.

The central paradox, for Jones, is that the U.S. method of protecting (or controlling) the oil market through military means has not maintained oil-market stability. Rather, it has fostered instability and war. Therefore, Jones has called for the complete withdrawal of all Pentagon forces from the Middle East.

Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia by Toby Jones (Harvard, 2010) is available from www.amazon.com.

Green Night Out takes place monthly at Singapore Kosher Vegetarian Chinese Restaurant, www.singaporevegetarian.com. Green Night Out is sponsored by the Green Party of Philadelphia, www.gpop.org. For more information about future Green Nights Out, please contact 215-243-7103 and gpop@gpop.org.