In the last century, the United States of America have undoubtedly achieved the position of “indispensable nation” in the world. *9 As a matter of fact, not only the U.S. has the most vibrant global economy, but it also is the country with the most fervent devotion to liberty, and last, but not least important, the most powerful military. Therefore, the world looks at the U.S. as a good example, as a big, influential country offering countless opportunities, and handling a lot of decisional power. In fact, because of many military interventions in other countries, like Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. has the commonly accepted reputation of being the “world’s policeman”. However, is the task of policing the globe as not profitable as it looks? What is it that really pushes the U.S. to intervene? This research argues that nothing comes without a price, or better that the U.S. acts in other countries’ affairs in order to achieve very tangible profits. Even though the declared reason of intervention is often that of protecting human rights, or saving innocent lives, there might be something “more valuable” to it. For instance, the presence of natural resources, like oil, on other countries’ soil, might be the real reason behind U.S. military decisions. The research question opposes the cases of Rwanda and Iraq. Both countries faced a very serious humanitarian situation, however we see U.S. intervention in Iraq, but not in Rwanda.

Research Question

“Why would a democracy like the U.S, where respect for human rights has long been a central component of foreign policy, intervene in a country like Iraq, where human rights have been violated, and genocide against the Kurds has been committed, but not do the same elsewhere, like in Rwanda that has seen one of the most ferocious genocides in history? What is it that pushed the U.S to take proactive steps towards remedying a determined situation in a country rather than another?”

Theory

The U.S did not invade Iraq to intervene in response to human rights violations, but rather did so for a more lucrative purpose. The official given reason of U.S intervention was Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)*a, however due to the lack of evidence that such threat actually existed, many argue that what caused the U.S to intervene was the presence of vast reservoirs of oil. As a matter of fact, *1 Iraq ranks fifth in the list of the ten biggest oil reservoirs in the world. Furthermore, *3before the 2003 U.S invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. A decade of war later, *2 the U.S expect to gain very lucrative oil deals from Iraq worth billions of dollars in the coming years. The reason for this is that now Iraq’s oil resources are largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms, such as Shell, BP, and the American ExxonMobil*b. Moreover, according to a White House press release dated November 30, 2013 titled, "Joint Statement by the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq Higher Coordinating Committee”, “Iraq is one of the largest oil exporters to the US, and has plans to raise its overall crude oil exports to 3.3m barrels per day (bpd) next year”, meaning U.S is definitely a large share of the market*b. Iraq’s alleged possessions of WMD and Saddam Hussein’s campaign against the Kurdish population were just false motives to push for a U.S intervention on Iraq’s territory. On the other hand, Rwanda’s genocide was unstopped. The ferocity with which the ethnic majority called “Hutu” exterminated the minority of “Tutsi” shocked the whole world. *4Even though the United States and the United Nations were aware of the preparations for massive slaughter, they failed to prevent and stop the genocide. The U.S did nothing to help the Rwandan emergency and denied international aid by refusing to acknowledge the genocide. Why didn’t the U.S intervene in this case? According to “The Guardian”, “The US had just pulled American troops out of a disastrous peacekeeping mission in Somalia the year before. The Clinton Administration had vowed never to return to a conflict it couldn't understand, between clans and tribes it didn't know, in a country where the US had no national interests.” *c For these reasons, there was nothing valuable enough to persuade the U.S in an intervention in a poor African country, with no relevant natural resources. In fact, *6 Rwanda has no upstream oil industry, and it needs to import oil from Kenya and Tanzania. Therefore, this leads us to argue that the main motive for the U.S intervention in Iraq rather than Rwanda was the presence of oil, and not the violation of human rights.

Hypotheses

Null Hypothesis

H0 = The presence of natural oil has no influence in the U.S intervention

Alternative Hypothesis

H1 = The presence of natural oil leads to more U.S intervention

The independent variable is the presence of natural resources, specifically oil, while the dependent variable is U.S military intervention.

In order to test these hypotheses three different kinds of data would be needed:

-Countries where there is oil, and we see U.S intervention
-Countries lacking oil, and the U.S still intervened
-Countries where there is no oil, and no U.S intervention

As we have seen, the U.S. often intervenes to solve humanitarian issues in other countries. However, in the past the U.S. did so in some countries, leaving other ones to be victims of their own fate. We brought up the cases of Iraq and Rwanda, arguing that there was intervention in the former because of the presence of oil, while the U.S. had no interest in the latter because of its lack of natural resources. This theory was supported by many different examples, and sources. However, this is just a hypothesis, and in order to confirm it, we would need an extensively larger set of data, such as other examples of countries, beside Iraq, where the presence of oil was followed by U.S. intervention, instances of countries lacking oil where the U.S. still intervened, and lastly, cases of countries without natural resources nor U.S. intervention. The cases of Iraq and Rwanda alone are not enough to support our alternative hypothesis, but they are just enough to make us question the role of the U.S. in the world, and the reasons behind each intervention.

*Works’ Cited Page: * *1 Top Ten Oil Reservoirs Countries http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-oil-reserves-countries-map.html * *2 http://www.globalpolicy.org/political-issues-in-iraq/oil-in-iraq.html * *3 CNN http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/ * *4 http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/genocide_in_rwanda.htm * *6 http://www.mbendi.com/indy/oilg/af/rw/p0005.html * *a http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=12552 * *b http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/12/2011122813134071641.html * *c http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/31/usa.rwanda * *9http://www.cfr.org/united-states/americas-destiny-police-world/p5559