Twisted Narratives: The Neoconservatives’ Pursuit of War for Oil in the 1970s

Following the oil crisis of 1973, President Nixon and other American officials made statements on the possibility of resorting to force in the event of OPEC’s actual “strangulation of the West” (Oil Fields as Military Objectives 1). Such statements were followed by a set of articles that rationalized taking military action to seize the oil fields in the Middle East. This paper argues that academics, political advisers, and news commentators who later became known as neoconservatives were the leading voices behind these calls for war. Their arguments and detailed plans of attack initiated a serious discussion of the military option in various decision-making circles and in different media outlets. By revisiting these articles and analyzing their narratives, this essay draws a connection between the neoconservatives’ war rhetoric in 1973–1975 and their war rhetoric in the aftermath of 9/11 attacks. The essay contends that in the effort to maintain US hegemony and dominance over a volatile and strategically vital region, neoconservatives reemployed an orientalist discourse that transformed the Middle East and its “natives” into the West’s cultural Other, namely, an opponent to democracy, modernity, and liberalism that can only be dealt with through the use of force. (RA)