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assess the options open
to
them.
Industrial leaders pressure their gov–
ecnments to get oil Aowing immediately.
"Unless it does," they say, "reserves
will soon run out, wrecking Europe's
industries." The public is up in arms.
Soon there will be fuel rationing and
higher prices. In time, as fuel runs out,
transportation wi ll grind to a halt. The
job market will be catastrophically
affected.
But diplomatic talks are having no
effect. The United Nations, as usual, is
powerless to act. The Soviet Union has
just vetoed consideration of the problem
in the Security Council. Public, indus–
trial and economic pressure increases to
the breaking point.
In secret, the ten Conuuon Market
nations agree that the only road to sur–
viva! is an invasion of the Middle East
and the seizure of oil sources and transit
points.
As a result, European troops - part
of the military arm of the Common
Market- make three simultaneous in–
vasions. From friendly Israel, European
troops smash across the delta region of
Egypt. Objectives? Open the Suez Canal
and the Alexandria pipeline, then rol!
across Egypt and invade Libya. From
the west, European troops land in Tu–
nisia. Their object is to conquer Algeria
and link up with troops fighting west
across Libya and
to
reopen these vital
oil sources.
At the same time, the European Navy
is furiously making its way through thc
Suez Canal to reopen the Red Sea ship–
ping lanes and break the Soviet Union's
Indian Ocean blockade.
T hey also hopc to link up with Japa–
nese naval vessels attempting to smash
their way through the Straits of Malacca
into the Indian Ocean from the East.
To support this action, troops strikc
south through Egypt, the Sudan and
Ethiopia.
Action In the North
In the North, European troops have
struck Lebanon and Syria to reopen
those vital pipelines. Next object is a
twofold drive across Jordanfiraq and
into Turkey to capture the Dardanelles
and blockade Russian naval forces in
the Black Sea.
But the Soviet Union has already
The
PLAIN TRUTH
moved troops into Turkey, Iran and
eastern Iraq. Massive concentrations of
Soviet troops and military equipment
are poised on the Euphrates river.
They spearhead across lraq and Jor–
dan bringing European and Russian
troops face
to
f
ace along the Jordan
River.
Russia - fearful of an attack into
her European heartland to the north -
remembering the days of Frederick the
Great, Napoleon, and Hitler - strikes
fust, showcring Western Europe's
industrial centers with missiles carrying
nuclear warheads. In the Far East, along
the Amur River bordee between China
and the Soviet Union, a mini -nuclear
war is already in progress. World War
IIJ
is on in full fury.
An impossible scenario? We
shouldn't be too sure. The stakes are
high. Middle East and North African
oil is p resently the Jifeblood of Europe
and Japan. Neither can exist without it.
A Possible Arab Reaction
Neither should we assume that the
Arab nations will necessarily act in their
best economic interest. It is true that oil
provides Middle Eastern governments
with an overwhelming amount of their
revenues. About 95 percent of Kuwait's,
79 percent of libya's, 77 percent of Saudi
Arabia's, 56 percent of Iraq's and 50
perceot of Tran's revenues come from oil.
But these nations do not always act
rationally from a business point of
view. l ran, Moslem but not Arab, shut
down its oil installations to its own det–
riment in 1951.
Two decades later, during January
1971, painful negotiations were in
process in Teheran, Iran between a
score of oil companies and thc ten
OPEC (Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Companies) nations.
During a press conference in late Jan–
uary, the Shah of Iran, normally a
mod–
era/e,
urged all ten OPEC membcrs to
take concerted action and halt oil
exports should the companies fail to
come to reasonable terms.
"If
that happens," said an executive
of a U. S. oil giant, "there would be
complete and utter chaos in Europe and
Japan." Fortunately, the oil companies
carne to terms.
The oil producer nations are not the
August 1971
only ones having a dangerous leverage.
The transit countries can also wield a
blackmail stick. And they have less to
lose.
Egypt, for example, is basically a
transit country. l ts "pipeline" - the
Suez Canal - has been shut down since
the Six-Day War in 1967. Consider
what has been the coasequeoce.
By the end of 1970, oil freight cates
from the Persian Gulf to Europe were
more than
SIX TIMES
what they were in
early 1967.
With this calarnity, plus a dosed
Trans-Arabian pipeline (severed "acci·
dentally" by a Syrian farm tractor May
3, 1969), and an inadequatc tanker
Beet, both the prosperity and national
security of Westero Europe were
tbreatened.
There has been, as a result, a gradual
but detectable shift in Europcan policy
on the Arab-Israel confrontation.
Europe has been mustering a mounting
determination to get sorne kind of
settlement in the area to free the flow
of oil through Suez.
A New Oil T actic
Meanwhile, Egypt has come up with
a new ploy. Its idea is to have Middle
East and North African oil producers
simply refuse to
expand p1·esent o111put.
This would maintain a
high
leve( of in–
come for oil producing nations but
would create an acute oil shortage in a
Western Eucope geared to an ever–
increasing rate of consumption.
With a European cate of increase at
one m.illion barreis per da
y -
oc
a
12
perceot increase yearly- Europe cannot
put up with the kiod of nonsense advo–
cated by the Egyptians.
But at the present time "Egypt" is
not simply the política! boundary we
know as the nation of Egypt. It is a
federation of several nations. Recently,
the presidents of Egypt, Libya, and
Syria formed a "Union of Arab Repub–
lics," binding their couotries into a fed–
eral union with one president and a
common military policy. Thc new state
will be established after national refer–
endums on September
1,
1971. It will
be open to other Arab countries. Sudan
will probably join later. Everyone, of
course, realizes that Arabs are prone to
fall out with each other. The signing of