It shouldn’t have surprised anyone when the six nations which make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) called on their Western protectors to enforce a no-fly zone in the skies over Libya in 2010.  Or that these same monarchies scurried to arm the same al Qaeda terrorists they were protecting in Libya as they invaded Syria in a failed attempt to overthrow the Assad government.

Why would these Arab nations- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Oman and Qatar- clamor for war against these fellow Arab oil-producers?  A brief history of the GCC is in order.

(Excerpted from Chapter 5: Persian Gulf Rent-a-Sheik: Big Oil & Their Bankers…)

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a watershed event.  With the Shah deposed and the Iranian Consortium nationalized, the Four Horsemen- Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, BP Amoco and Royal Dutch/Shell- and their Rockefeller/Rothschild owners sought to create a more comprehensive security system for the safeguarding of Persian Gulf crude oil.  The House of Saud was fast becoming a lightning rod for Arab nationalists, who saw the monarchy as a Western surrogate.

The State Department sought to take pressure off the Saudis by finding other regional leaders willing to embrace the same oil for arms quid pro quo that had been in force in the Kingdom since the early 1950’s.  That arrangement involves the US arming the House of Saud to protect it from enemies both foreign and domestic.  In return the Saudis serve as “swing producer”, ensuring the West a steady and relatively cheap supply of oil.  While US spook outfits like SAIC, Booz Hamilton, TRW and Vinnell Corp. trained the Saudi National Guard, Pakistani and Egyptian pilots (Saudi nationals were not to be trusted) were trained to fly US F-15 fighters in protection of the Kingdom.  The Saudis in turn became the primary funder of CIA/MI6/Mossad covert operations worldwide, including those aimed at Libya from bases in Exxon Mobil-controlled Chad.

While the Middle East region contains 66.5% of known global crude oil reserves, the shoreline which surrounds the southwest side of the Persian Gulf and which is the property of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), contains 42% of the world’s crude reserves.  The Saudis have 261 billion barrels, more than double any other nation and 26% of the world’s known reserves.  The Kingdom encompasses no less than 60 major oil and gas fields which produce 10 million barrels per day.  The massive Ghawar field is by far the largest on earth.  Iraq has the world’s second largest proven reserves at 112 billion barrels  The UAE is third with 97.8 b/b.  Kuwaiti is fourth with 96.5 billion barrels.

In 1981 the US and Saudi governments spearheaded an effort to create the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), consisting of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and UAE.  All except Oman are members of OPEC.  All are what are known as banker nations within OPEC.  Iran, Indonesia, Venezuela, Iraq, Algeria and Nigeria are considered the industrializing nations of OPEC.  The formation of the GCC drew immediate criticism from Libya, Syria, Iraq and the PLO who said the agreement divided the Arab League into haves and have-nots.

The banker nations are prone to sell oil to the Four Horsemen cheaply, since their countries are already developed and any oil revenues can be recycled into global investments which benefit those countries’ elites.  The industrializing nations need a higher oil price, both to develop their countries’ infrastructure and to service their enormous debts to Western bankers.  The banker nations of OPEC are the price doves, while the industrializing nations are price hawks.

The price-dove banker GCC states are all ruled by monarchs, whom Big Oil finds easy to manage.  OPEC’s price hawk industrializing nations tend to be more democratic and thus more difficult for the Four Horsemen to manipulate viabribery schemes and other forms of corruption.  These democracies tend to have nationalized oil sectors, so the sale of oil benefits the whole of society, whereas the GCC oil sector is increasingly privatized, with revenues enriching the Four Horsemen and their puppet monarchs.

Culturally in the Arab world the foundation of the GCC dramatically diffused the power of the more traditional and nationalistic geopolitical power centers in the Middle East such as Damascus and Beirut, while enhancing the power of the relatively short-lived Gucci Gulf State monarchies.

This new banker nation block quickly signed the GCC Economic Agreement, liberalizing their economies to allow for more direct investment by Western banks and corporations, creating a free trade zone within the entire membership and launching a duty-free port at Dubai in the UAE.  Bahrain became a major offshore banking center.  Foreign workers from poor Asian countries like the Philippines and Bangladesh were encouraged to enter GCC countries, providing cheap labor for the oil elite.  A common market was established.  Oil policies were harmonized.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the most valuable currencies in the world are not the British pound, the US dollar or the Swiss franc.  Far more valuable are the Kuwaiti dinar (D$.30=1 US dollar), the Bahraini dinar (D$.37=1 US dollar) and the Maltese lira (L$.46=1 US dollar).  Malta was founded by Catholic Crusader Knights of Malta with help from the Vatican.  It is a nexus of CIA/organized crime activity in the Mediterranean.

A 1966 al-Ba’ath newspaper column in Damascus enunciates the Arab nationalist price hawk position which was the raison d’etre for OPEC in the first place. “There remains no other course for national and progressive forces except that of struggle in all its forms”, the paper implored, adding, “even if this leads to cutting off oil supply…and closing down oil wells in order to deprive the monopolist, the embezzler, the despot of this oil”.

Tea-Sipping Embezzlers

In order to fully understand the significance of the formation of the GCC, one must appreciate the history of feudal elite rule and British colonization which resulted in the very existence of the sheikdoms which make up the GCC.  A history of single-family rule in these Persian Gulf States made these emirates ripe for the imposition of an oil-for-arms security pact like the one formed in 1981.  As Qatar’s Oil Minister stated bluntly in a recently, “The industrial world will protect the oil.  We believe this is a proper exchange of interests and benefits”.

In 1776 the British East India Company set up a headquarters at what is now Kuwait.  When Kuwaiti members of the Hashemite al-Sabah clan, who share their surname with Assassin founder Hasan bin Sabah, helped the Ottoman Turks quell uprisings in southern Iraq, the Shiek of the Muntafiq tribe gave the al-Sabahs date groves near Fao and Sufiyeh in southern Iraq.

Kuwait was seen as highly strategic by the British in its role as protector of Indian Ocean sea lanes.  By 1900 the British cut a deal with Mubarak al-Sabah which carved Kuwait out of Iraq and made it a British protectorate.  The vast majority of people who lived in what was now declared Kuwait opposed the British plan and wanted to remain part of Iraq.

In 1914, in the midst of WWI, the British resident in the Gulf promised Sheik Mubarak al-Sabah Crown recognition of his new country in exchange for al-Sabah’s turning on and attacking Ottoman Empire troops at Safwan, Mesopotamia in what is now Iraq.  The al-Sabah clan earned their Union Jack stripes.  The Hashemite monarchy single-handedly rules Kuwait to this day.

In 1917 the British made a client out of Ibn Saud, who was also told to encourage Arab tribesman to repel the Ottoman Turks from the Gulf Region at the onset of WWI.  That same year the British House of Rothschild pushed through the Balfour Declaration, lending Crown support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.  Rothschild was less concerned about the Jewish people than he was about establishing a Middle East outpost from where he and his lackeys could keep watch over the center of their global oil monopoly.  A year later the Ottomans were defeated.

Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were carved out of the Ottoman Empire and fell under British rule, with Ibn Saud taking control of his namesake Saudi Arabia.  His progeny form the modern-day House of Saud.  Palestine became part of Transjordania and was run by an emir hand-picked by the British.  The Trucial States of Oman (now United Arab Emirates) and the Oman Coast (now Oman) were also given British protectorate status.  As Winston Churchill commented three decades later, “The emir is in Transjordania, where I put him one Sunday afternoon in Jerusalem”.

In 1922 the Treaty of Jeddah gave Saudi Arabia independence from Britain, though the Crown still exerted considerable influence. [173]  During the 1920’s, with help from British troops, Ibn Saud grabbed more territory from the Ottomans when he annexed Riyadh.  He also seized the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from the Hashemites.

Britain and France signed the San Remo Agreement which split Middle East oil concessions between the two countries.  Within two weeks the US responded with the Open Door Policy, which cut the US Horsemen into the Middle East oil game.  Small US independent producers like Sinclair opposed the policy, complaining that it favored the Rockefeller oil interests.  US oil majors Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Texaco and Gulf- the first three progeny of the John D. Rockefeller Standard Oil Trust- joined with British Petroleum, Royal Dutch/Shell- owned largely by Holland’s royal House of Orange and the Rothschild family- and the French Compaignie de Petroles in dividing up the Middle East oil patch.

The Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) and the Iranian Consortium would be dominated by the European companies, while Saudi ARAMCO would be owned by the American Horsemen.  The British protectorates would be exploited through various combinations of the Four Horsemen.

An IPC subsidiary, Petroleum Development Trucial Coast, began drilling in what is now the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 1935.  Today in the UAE oil industry ADCO is 24%-owned by BP Amoco, 9.5% by Royal Dutch/Shell and 9.5% by Exxon Mobil.  ADMA is owned 14.67% by BP Amoco and 13.33% by the old French Compaignie de Petroles, which has now consolidated into Total.  Esso Trading Company/Abu Dhabi is 100% owned by Exxon Mobil.  Dubai Petroleum is 55% owned by Conoco, which also owns 35% of Dubai Marine Areas, of which BP Amoco holds a 33.33% share.  The majority of the UAE’s oil goes to Japan.  BP and Total hold long-term shipping contracts with the UAE.

Chevron and Texaco, already joined through ARAMCO and their Caltex marketing arm, formed the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BPC) in that protectorate.  The new Chevron Texaco now runs BPC.  In Qatar, Exxon Mobil dominates the rich natural gas sector.  It owns a large chunk of Qatargas, which currently provides Japan with 6 million tons of natural gas per year.  It is also a 30% partner in the giant Ras Luffan gas field which produces 10 million tons of natural gas per year.

BP joined with Gulf in starting the Kuwait Oil Company, which today sells discount crude to ex-proprietors BP Amoco and Chevron Texaco (Chevron bought Gulf in 1981).  By 1949 the US Horsemen controlled 42% of Middle Eastern oil reserves, while the Anglo-Dutch Horsemen had 52%.  The remaining 8% was owned by Elf Total Fina and other smaller companies.

The British began granting independence to its Gulf State protectorates beginning in 1961 with Kuwait and ending in 1971 when the United Arab Emirates were formed out of seven sheikdoms, the most important of which are Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.  British influence did not wane. Oman remains particularly close to the Crown.  British mercenaries constitute the royal guards which protect the ruling families in all six GCC states.

These emirates are ruled by single family monarchies selected by British colonialists to carry out their plan for dominating Middle East oil and shipping lanes in the late 18th century.  The six GCC ruling families are inter-related with one another, just as are the royal families of Europe.

What happened in Libya and now in Syria is a classic covert operation conjured by Western intelligence and funded by the GCC which attempts to seize oilfields belonging to the people of Libya and gas fields owned by Syrians and hand them over to the Rothschild/Rockefeller trillionaires.  Don’t be fooled.  This is the same old colonial bullshit.  Viva Ghaddafi!  Viva Assad!

Dean Henderson is the author of five books: Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network, The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries, Das Kartell der Federal Reserve, Stickin’ it to the Matrix & The Federal Reserve Cartel.  You can subscribe free to his weekly Left Hook column @ www.hendersonlefthook.wordpress.com