Seeker Blog

Amir Taheri’s analysis for Asharq Alawsat is highly recommended. The new George Clooney-starring film has been getting the blockbuster publicity treatment (lengthy TIME interviews, etc.). And it has already been pirated and circulated in the Middle East, with predictably horrible consequences:

The would-be ruler of an oil-rich Arab state is planning a policy reform that includes allowing girls to go to school, and signing an oil contract with China. But days before he takes over he is assassinated when a remote controlled bomb destroys his bullet-proof limousine in the middle of the desert.

But who would want such an enlightened prince out of the way?

The answer given in “Syriana”, the new Hollywood blockbuster starring George Clooney, is simple: the murder was planned and carried out by the CIA, the dirty-tricks arm of the United States of America.

But why would the US want an enlightened Arab leader murdered at a time that President George W Bush is publicly calling for such leaders to emerge in the Arab world?

Again, the answer provided by the scriptwriters is straightforward: the US government is controlled by Texas oil interests that cannot allow any Arab state to sign an oil contract with China.

I saw the film in a pre-release showing in New York last month and did not expect it to be already available throughout the Arab world in a pirated videocassette version. And, yet, in the past week or so I have received more than a dozen emails from Arab friends throughout the Middle East citing the film as, in the word of one of them, another “sure proof” that the US will never tolerate democratic leaders in that neck of the wood.

This is a great essay on American Self Loathing, by the elites such as Hollywood, a good article to stow for reference, for such quotes as:

“There is no more agreeable position than that of dissident from a stable democratic society.”

from Evelyn Waugh. Unfortunately, our dissidents are on the other side - providing significant aid to the enemy:

The self-loathing party in the US, which includes a disturbingly large part of the elite, is doing three things.

First, it says that America, being the evil power it is, is a legitimate target for revenge attacks by Arab radicals and others.

Secondly, it tells the American people that all this talk about democracy is nonsense if only because major decisions are ultimately taken by a cabal of businessmen, and politicians and lawyers in their pay.

Lastly, and perhaps without realising it, the self-loathing Americans reduce the Arabs to the level of mere objects in their history. It is the almighty America that decides every single detail of Arab life with the Arabs as, at best, onlookers and, at worst, victims of American violence. The Arabs are even denied credit for their own terrorist acts as “Syriana” shows that it is not they but the CIA that decides who kills whom and where.

Pretending to be sympathetic to the “Arab victims of American Imperialism”, the film is, in fact, an example of ethno-centrism gone wild. Its message is: the Arabs are nothing, not even self-motivated terrorists, but mere puppets manipulated by us in the omnipotent US!

Looking for more informed commentary on “Syriana”, I found former Saudi diplomat John Burgess has posted a short review of the film at Crossroads Arabia. He finds the same distortions discussed by Taheri - but notes that as a film, it is a good movie. It is unfortunate when bad history & bad politics are so effectively marketed:

While film reviews are not a regular feature here, I’ll make an exception for “Syriana,” starring George Clooney Chris Cooper, and Matt Damon. The reason for the exception is that the film is based on former CIA officer Robert Baer’s See No Evil, the story of a CIA agent, but also his 2004 book Sleeping with the Devil, which carried the subtitle “How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude.” The film never says which country forms the center of the story, but it dances around sufficiently that one can conclude that Saudi Arabia is, indeed, intended. Audiences certainly seem to think that the KSA is the country involved.

Baer’s books’ thesis–which is the major theme of the film–is that the US is so desperate for oil that it will not only support autocratic states at the expense of democratic reform, but that it will also kill reformers to ensure the uninterrupted flow of oil. That’s a non-uncommon refrain heard in leftist, democratic, and anti-capitalist fora, but it reamains, essentially, nuts.

The film itself is actually quite good. The direction and script, by the gifted Stephen Gaghan, are superb, with interlacing stories that cross in unexpected ways. The acting is uniformly excellent. The film, shot on location in Dubai and Morocco, Geneva and the Washington, DC area, reeks of authenticity. Even the scenes set in Beirut, though shot elsewhere, are very realistic.