Revisiting Bitter Lake
Why the Middle East failed to modernize
Toward the end of Roosevelt’s reign, the United States emerged in an exceptional position. Through its ability to execute large, industrial mobilizations the U.S. had just secured itself as the global superpower. It was clear to Roosevelt that if the United States were to continue to grow the way it needed to, the country would have to be directly involved in the world's modernization efforts. This was the case as the might of the United States lied in its private industries and military. Although the fuel to that power was oil and without oil security, the U.S. would not be able to maintain its new status as a global superpower.
King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia (center) meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy in Great Bitter Lake, Egypt on February 14, 1945.National Archives/Interim Archives/Getty Images
In 1945, President Roosevelt secretly went to Bitter Lake, Egypt to meet with King Abdul Aziz of Saudia Arabia. It was only two weeks after the Soviet Union had unveiled to the world the horrors of Auschwitz and Roosevelt was determined to persuade King Abdul to gift the Gaza strip to the Jewish people. They met in secret as Roosevelt had promised Churchill that the United States would not interfere with British territories, especially during wartime. Not to mention, the United States and Great Britain were quietly competing for access to the region’s new-found wealth...
Fifteen years prior Texaco and Chevron had surveyed eastern Saudia Arabia and concluded that their findings “showed that the center of gravity in world oil production and supply would soon shift to the Persian Gulf, to Saudia Arabia in particular.” Roosevelt understood this and approached King Abdul by focusing their discussion on how the United States could help Saudi Arabia bridge into the modern world. At the time the Middle East was dry and barren. Most of its land was incapable of facilitating its agricultural and infrastructural needs. So, in the months following their meeting at Bitter Lake many American companies were hired to execute massive infrastructure projects across the region.
King Abdul ultimately rejected Roosevelt’s request to gift the Gaza Strip to the Jewish people stating that it was more appropriate to use German territory instead. But, Roosevelt was successful in securing America’s foreseeable oil interests as their meeting led to the creation of the Trans Arabian pipeline which connected eastern Saudia Arabia to the Mediterranean. The pipeline allowed the United States and its allies to have direct access to the heart of the world’s largest known oil reserve and created massive contracts for American businesses. The pipeline's development was contracted by Bechtel Corporation and in exchange for the contract, the US military pledged to protect Saudi Oil rigs from violent neighbors.
In the years following this meeting on Bitter Lake, this sort of exchange was repeated across the Middle East. Business for protection, protection for business. Some of the projects, however, caused more harm than good and continue to be relevant to this day.
Morrison Knudson was an American construction company based out of Boise, Idaho. They were famous for building projects like the Hoover Dam and Kennedy Space Center. During World War II they were mobilized across the Pacific building bases and airfields for the American military. After the meetings at Bitter Lake, however, they were to begin the development of a large dam in southern Afghanistan. The dam was located on the Arghandab River in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the second-largest city in the country. Its goal was to provide clean drinking water and fertile new land to the people and farmers of Kandahar. However, the Dam quickly became riddled with problems and was unable to deliver what the Kandahar people desperately needed.
The water that the dam sought to contain had risen so much that a large area of Kandahar became waterlogged. This was caused by an impermeable rock layer that prevented proper drainage and led to large amounts of salts to rise to the surface. The salt infected the topsoils of the region and forced farmers to adapt to new crops that would yield under these new and unfavorable conditions. Quickly, the farmers discovered that this new land yielded one crop disproportionately better than others, opium. This destroyed the region’s hope for democracy as the crops ultimately fell under the control of local Wahabbist regimes. To this day the Opium grown in the region continues to finance numerous radical factions across the Middle East (including ISIS).
Ghamai, a farmer in Zhari district, Kandahar province, walks through his opium poppy field on April 9, 2019. He says he grows the illegal crop to make money to feed his family. PHILLIP WALTER WELLMAN/STARS AND STRIPES
Under Roosevelt, it was clear that the United States was going to become dependent on the Middle East for oil and that it was the nation’s duty to support the region’s development. However, not all American leaders agreed. Some believed that it was better to maintain instability in the Middle East as the entire region sat on what seemed to be an infinite amount of the world’s most valuable resource.
As we know the Jewish people were ultimately gifted Israel in 1948 to the dismay of King Abdul and other leaders across the Middle East. One of those leaders relevant to this story was Gamal Abdel Nasser who in 1954 became the second President of Egypt. Gamal felt great resentment towards Israel and sought to unify the Muslim world. His goal was to create the United Arab Republic which would begin the process of unifying the region by combining Egypt and Syria. This quickly made him an enemy to the American government and its allies. Henry Kissinger played an important role in creating many of the anti unification policies that we continue to embrace today.
Kissinger, as a young boy in a Jewish family, escaped Germany to the United States as the Nazis began to take control. Naturally, Kissinger felt a strong moral duty to protect Israel and the Jewish people from any further conflict. The unification of the Middle East, therefore, became the greatest threat to Israel’s security as well as The United States’ economic interests. To Kissinger, it was better to contribute to the region’s instability by quietly placing contradictory leaders inside Saudia Arabia and Afghanistan. Marxist uprisings in Afghanistan ensured military engagement from the Soviet Union and capitalist leaders in Saudia Arabia promised violent outbursts from local Wahabists. So Kissinger with little effort was able to stimulate conflict in the region and destabilize the Middle East's perception of who the true perpetrators really were.
Kissinger used what he called, “constructive ambiguity” while negotiating with the leadership of the Middle East during his time as Secretary of State under President Nixon. Constructive ambiguity, “refers to the deliberate use of ambiguous language on a sensitive issue in order to advance some political purpose.” This led to opaque policies that manipulated the leaders of the Middle East and America.
To Kissinger, it was better to pretend that our attempts to modernize or unify the region were not the result of a collective failure but instead the result of a mysterious dilemma that lied beneath the surface of reality. This way the United States could continue to get the oil it needed from the region on its terms.
However, these policies couldn’t last forever and another great shift in foreign policy occurred under President Ronald Reagan. Reagan deeply believed the United States had a moral duty to protect the vulnerable. American society agreed with Reagan as his arguments were grounded under the assumption that the United States had a morally superior position on the global stage. Although, instead of using contradictory policies like Kissinger, Reagan contributed to the instability of the region through contradictory arms deals. These deals were quietly executed with nearly every state in the Middle East including Khomeini’s Iran.
During the early ’80s, Khomeninis Iran was the primary enemy of the United States in the Middle East. Famously, the conflict between the two began in 1980 when fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days (also the event the movie Argo is based on). However, amidst this crisis, the United States was caught selling billions of dollars of arms to the Iranian government. While the exact arms sales conducted during 1981 and 1984 remain classified, in 1985 alone it has been reported that approximately 2,800 anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles were sold to the Iranian government.
Today, we continue to play the same game. Instead of investing in policies that may lead to the unification of the region, we continue to sign increasingly large arms deals with opposing regimes. In fact, just four months after President Trump was elected president he signed a 10 year, $460 billion arms deal with Saudia Arabia despite concerns from Israeli leadership... The United States’ role in the middle east is confusing as it is surrounded by dishonest narratives that no longer work on the American public. Being in the Middle East and maintaining its instability will continue to be America’s goal for the foreseeable future because… it’s good business.
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - MAY 21 ( Bandar Algaloud / Saudi Royal Council / Handout - Anadolu Agency )
References:
https://keller.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/mitt-and-bibi-diplomacy-as-demolition-derby/?hp
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_8529/index.html
https://www.history.com/news/fdr-saudi-arabia-king-oil
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/61731399.pdf
https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_i.htm
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/world/middleeast/trump-netanyahu-israel-uae.html