US Foreign Policy after the Cold War

Arabia, would any longer gain from holding to physical control of oil alone Thus, the act of US intervention in the Persian Gulf, especially the fashion in which it was conducted, is explicable in terms of the US reaction to its hegemonic decline The rhetoric of oil is only a reminder of bygone years of glory, a backward looking justification that is trying to interject the past into the uncertain future As the saying goes: history recurred twice, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce Notes This is a part of a longer lecture entitled 'Global Oil and the Iranian Oil Policy in the Aftermath of the persian Gulf War' given at the Ceatre for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge; MA, USA, on May 18.