The Petroleum Triangle: Oil, Globalization and Terror (review)

Steve Yetiv's The Petroleum Triangle argues that oil and globalization separately and together produced unique conditions for "transnational terrorist" organizations and al-Qa'ida to evolve and enjoy unprecedented success. Regarding oil, he emphasizes its critical role in transportation, in driving the US presence in the Gulf, in backing repressive regimes, and in providing vast money to Saudi elites who have financed Wahhabi proselytizing and the Taliban. Regarding globalization, he stresses its bringing US culture to the Middle East, thereby providing grist for jihadist indignation, and its providing terrorists with the internet, instant media notoriety, and easier movement across borders. Taken together, Yetiv argues, oil and globalization uniquely enabled a small group which "sees the U.S. presence" in the Gulf "through a distorted religious lens" to become an unprecedented threat far beyond its home.

To prove this, Professor Yetiv assembles a prodigious array of sources in two parts: "Oil and Transnational Terrorism" and "Globalization and Transnational Terrorism." These are often highly informative — especially on Saudi elite support for jihadi groups, financial flows, characterizations of globalization, and more. Yet, this reviewer is left unconvinced of the thesis. But, apparently, so is the author, who constantly uses hedging language in stating how sources cited contribute to his thesis and concludes by saying:

Although [al-Qa'ida] has been diminished ... it may take years or even decades before we know [the outcome]... What happens in the Petroleum Triangle may well shape important contours of this unfolding tale

(p. 215).

This is hardly a ringing affirmation of the thesis. Does the "Petroleum Triangle" drive and "shape" modern-day Transnational Terror and al-Qa'ida? Or is it merely that it "may well shape important contours" of these?

Indeed, spectacular petroleum rents reaped in Gulf and neighboring societies with long religio-cultural traditions of jihad and romantic memories of resistance to Christian crusaders have facilitated groups like al-Qa'ida. But what of globalization's supposed special role? Al-Qa'ida's initial roots in the Afghan war of the 1980s are obviously very much a product of Cold War superpower contention as opposed to globalization and its user-friendly IT aspects, which came about some years later, especially in Middle Eastern states. And, even as to oil as the key financial lubricant, in fact Bin Ladin et al.'s-jihadist incubation in Afghanistan was also strongly financed by US money and weapons literally dumped there and in the tribal areas of Pakistan to defeat the Soviets. Indeed, this came alongside Saudi oil money, but here too, the Wahabbi proselytizing impetus was synonymous with Saudi Cold War aims.

As for Bin Ladin's later development in Saudi Arabia, this was actually facilitated by the low oil prices of the mid-1980s-1990s, which led to economic, social, and demographic crises in Saudi Arabia. These crises then joined with the affront to national/ Islamic sensibilities felt by many Saudis over the US troops stationed there to contain Saddam after the 1991 Gulf War. In any case, globalization-plus-oil seems thin to explain al-Qa'ida in comparison to Cold War-plus-oil, if two factors must be named.

Meanwhile, Yetiv gets right the contemporary petroleum system much more than most any other writer. He clearly recognizes the absurdity of saying that particular importing states are "dependent" on particular producers in a market-centered system. Nowadays, importers' energy security depends on market stability — and so on Gulf security where so much oil is produced. However, when Yetiv asks whether the money and effort the US has expended on policing the region and fighting al-Qa'ida is "worth it," he fails to consider a key geopolitical benefit of this system as opposed to the previous neo-colonial one. Geopolitically, the unified market provides collective energy-security because all consumers draw oil there from all producers, obviating Great Power contention for control of specific oil fields or supply routes. In 1991, Saddam Hussein, by grabbing Kuwait's oil...