From THE HERALD, October 23rd, 2000
BY Michael Tierney

JOHN F Kennedy was the first American President brought up on the
automobile.
His first car, a 1940 green Buick convertible, paved the way for political
spin and image. Harry S Truman was more sensible preferring, instead, his
Chrysler Plymouth. Many years earlier, the obese 300lb William Howard Taft
drove around in an enormous Pierce-Arrow. And President Bill Clinton? He
owned a Mustang.

Americans love their cars almost as much as their Presidents, because they
define administrations as well as people. The first car I ever  owned was a
$400 1974 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight. It had chrome, authentic
hubcaps, and evoked an age of scrapbook mechanics and not technology. I was
18
and I raced it from New York to Boston, before it crash-landed, amid an
iceberg of hidden faults, in Canada. I left it to rot at the side of a quiet
road. But I can still smell the sheath of metal that encased me as I drove
along piney interstates, transcending time, in vintage leather and junkyard
transmission bolts.

Since spending adolescent student summers across the Atlantic I've owned
five ageing, American beauties. American cars are like no others; they are a
gesture to the self-invention and self-expression of the  American dream.
From Buick Surreys to '54 Corvettes, their names remind you they were never
intended to be functional, only mythical. Unlike their foreign counterparts
they are not interested in economy, but in muscle. They are fearless and
profane. In their fuel consumption they are sadistic. The Oldsmobile managed
10 miles to the gallon.

Despite this, Americans never call for more fuel-efficient cars. They simply
demand cheap energy as if it were a birthright. In America, like everything
else, these machines are under pressure to be low-rent heroes. What they
really are is a metaphor for greed and consumption in a land where oil is in
danger of becoming an arbiter of
world power.

In the 1970s the Western nations, partic ularly America, were consuming oil
with increasing disregard for consequence, while remaining dependent on
foreign producers. In 1973, at the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli war, huge
price increases resulted following the boycott of oil to Western countries
by Arab producers. Panic was created, generating huge demands, with the
result
that prices were driven higher still. Yet America is still as reckless in
its consumption. Despite its experience of the 1973 world oil crisis,
America is as interested in fuel conservation as it is in offering anything
approaching sympathy with Arab grievances.

Accessing new reserves to tackle the worldwide fuel crisis will always have
a price to pay, yet Iraq, which has enormous
potential supplies, is consistently being overlooked because of UN sanctions
on its oil production. For access to oil reserves in the Middle East there
are two main routes. Either, via those who are in the pocket of the
Americans or, conversely, Saddam Hussein. While fat Americans eat apple-pie
and fill up their utility
vehicles, Iraqi children, used as a synonym for Saddam himself, eat once a
day to fool their bellies. They grow more and more emaciated by an unethical
foreign policy foisted upon them, by America, via the United Nations.

Iraq currently exports three million barrels a day, under the UN's
oil-for-food
programme, on the condition that the funds are used to relieve the sanctions
crippling its population. The latter, of course, is not happening. The
mortality rate for under-fives has jumped from 48 per 1000 in 1990 to 125
per 1000 in 1999. These children and their parents are suffering
catastrophe.

Sanctions and bombings, following the
Gulf War, are simply creating a generation of young Iraqis who detest the
West.
It is estimated that there are 110 billion barrels in proven oil reserves in
Iraq, although the country has been held back in tapping them by the
sanctions. Once sanctions end, or the toppling of Saddam is precipitated,
Iraq can expect to contribute massive resources for the oil-rich Gulf.
Sanctions, of course, could have been lifted very quickly if only Saddam had
complied
with international obligations, via the UN (ironically, America still has to
pay its full UN dues), instead of obstructing weapons inspectors.

But a new round of inspections is unlikely to make Iraq suddenly more
compliant with
visiting missions; neither would they be likely to yield anything
significant.
Saddam is unlikely to grant access to sites of sensitivity.

And what would happen if it were discovered that Iraq was free of weapons of
mass destruction? It's also ironic that the US increased its share of the
international arms trade last year, and now accounts
for nearly 50% of the $53.4bn (#37bn) annual market. The recent hijacking of
a Saudi Arabian plane, which touched down in Baghdad, where the hijackers
gave themselves up, further reinforces the absolute
dichotomy in the way the West views the Middle East. The hijackers'
criticism
of Saudi Arabia, which is no friend of human rights, and whose royal family
are fine bedfellows of corruption, exploitation of foreign workers, and a
lack of free press, was viewed as either an Iraqi plot or and Iraqi
publicity coup.

The Saudi monarchy is basically pro-American and it wouldn't do for America
to speak out against its favourite little subservient oil producer. No-one,
it seems, is reading the small print attached to the rumour that UN
sanctions are meant to punish Saddam and not the people of Iraq.

The glue of community is collective behaviour and, generally, it's a good
thing unless self-interest subverts it. internationally, the community that
is railing against innocent Iraqis is behaving with incalculable
self-interest. The Middle East crisis will continue beyond the current
American presidential race between Al Gore and George W Bush. For the sake
of innocent Iraqis, let's hope America doesn't elect George W Bush. His
father ordered the largest presidential limousine ever made. It was 21ft 9in
long, with a 7.5 litre V-8 engine. Visual shorthand for Frankenstein's
monster.