The Greater Middle East Project (2)

Last week, we mentioned in our column that the origins of the Greater Middle East Project (GMEP) date back to the discovery of oil in the USA in 1859. In fact, every region in the world where oil is found is a part of the GMEP. For example, the first oil in Iraq was extracted in 1927 in the city of Kirkuk, very close to the surface. The oil gushed out of the ground so rapidly that five Iraqi citizens lost their lives due to the pressure. History would teach us in the following years that these Iraqi citizens were not the only people to lose their lives in Iraq because of oil.

Famous YouTuber Haluk Tatar tells the story of three figures who came together in 1928 on his YouTube channel as follows:

“On August 28, 1928, three men (a Dutchman, an American, and an Englishman) had an appointment in the middle of a mountainous terrain in Northern Scotland at Achnacarry Castle. The Dutchman’s name was Henri Deterding. He was a ruthless and determined man known as the 'Napoleon of Oil.' After exploiting oil wells in the Sumatra region, he collaborated with a wealthy shipowner who sold seashells to found Royal Dutch Shell and led it until 1936. The American’s name was Walter C. Teagle. He was the representative of the Standard Oil Company founded by Rockefeller. The company is known today as Exxon. The wells, shipping, refineries, and distribution network were under the control of Standard Oil. The company was almost like a multi-headed monster. In 1911, Rockefeller was forced to divide his assets in the USA on the grounds that he had violated anti-competition laws (prevention of monopolization). Although Rockefeller divided his assets into 34 companies, the result did not change; all these companies remained under the control of the first billionaire of the century. The British Baron John Cadman was the director of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which would later be known as BP. Upon the recommendation of Winston Churchill, who was the Minister of the Navy at the time, the British Government decided to invest in BP, and the Royal Navy began using oil instead of coal. Once ships, planes, and tanks appeared, oil became the blood flowing through the veins of war. The automotive industry was also advancing rapidly. The Ford T had reached a sales figure of 1 million. The world was thirsty for oil, and companies were entering a relentless race. But the competition in between was making the market unstable. It was time to reach an agreement. The biggest oil companies of the era, Royal Dutch Shell, Standard Oil Company, and Anglo-Persian Oil Company—that is, today’s Shell, Exxon, and BP—came together at this castle, and the secret meeting began. Henri Deterding said: 'To make huge profits, we must share the world’s oil resources like brothers. We must talk and reach an agreement on oil fields, shipping costs, and sales prices.' It did not take long to reach an agreement. A secret pact was made that no one signed. This agreement would later be called the Achnacarry Agreement. The year 1928 was the year when the major oil companies came together and divided the world. Oil production fields were shared. Oil-producing countries were kept out of this sharing. On the morning of August 29, 1928, the world order had completely changed. Other companies also joined the billionaires’ conspiracy. Esso (Standard Oil of New Jersey), Royal Dutch Shell (Anglo-Dutch), BP (Anglo-Persian Company - APOC), Mobil (Standard Oil Co. of New York - Socony), Chevron (Standard Oil of California - Socal), Gulf Oil, Texaco. History would call them the Seven Sisters. At the beginning of the 20th century, oil companies started a war to control Iran’s rich oil fields. At the end of the First World War, France and Britain divided the Middle East with the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the San Remo Agreement. American oil companies were also furious. Something had to be done immediately, and the solution proposal came from the Armenian oil broker from Üsküdar, Calouste Gulbenkian, nicknamed 'Mr. Five Percent.' Gulbenkian drew a red line by calculating future oil extraction fields. He banned competition within this red line and demanded mutual cooperation. The Iraq Petroleum Company (its name in 1912 was the Turkish Petroleum Company; it is the name of the company in which the British, Germans, and Gulbenkian had a 5% share, which had the right to operate oil in Ottoman lands) was established for this reason. BP, Exxon, and STP from France (known today as Total) became shareholders in equal proportions. The Seven Sisters had seized the Middle East’s oil reserves. For this genius invention of Gulbenkian, he would receive 5% from every agreement. These agreements were short texts that did not exceed 15-20 pages. But with these, countries had transferred the usage rights of all their lands/national resources.”

This unwritten Achnacarry Pact was accidentally revealed in the 1950s, but the revelation of this pact did not change the fate of the Middle East. Again, at the end of 1901, a British citizen obtained a permit to search for oil in the southwest of Iran, which was in turmoil. The search, which lasted 7 years, resulted in the discovery of very high-quality oil in 1908.

In both the First World War and the Second World War, the Iranian people would not be left with the right to determine their own destiny, and Iran would be divided between Russia and England. In fact, it was the Anglo-Persian Oil Company that divided Iran. This company would take the name British Petroleum (BP) after Iran was completely taken from the Iranian people.

The GMEP did not spare other Arab geographies like Iraq either. After the 1945 Yalta Conference, US President Roosevelt anchored at the Suez Canal with a warship. The King of Saudi Arabia came to this warship. Roosevelt asked him if he 'remembered the pledge of allegiance in 1936.' The King of Saudi Arabia said, 'Yes, I remember. All the oil in my country belongs to the USA. Just give us some money in exchange for protecting my kingdom.' The USA, which won the Second World War, had ended the British superiority in the Middle East and, following this verbal agreement, had seized all the oil of the Arabian Peninsula. To put it concretely, four of the Seven Sisters—Exxon, Chevron, Mobil, and Texaco—formed a company called Aramco together. In this way, they have continued to own all Arab oil to this day.

There were some awakenings in between. For example, the USA could not prevent an Arab nationalist named Mohammad Mosaddegh from coming to power in Iran. During the Mosaddegh era, the public raided Abadan and deported all foreigners. On May 1, 1951, after Iran deported the British in particular, England blockaded Iranian ports where oil was shipped with warships. Iran was made unable to sell even a gram of oil. Countries that did not have unity among them were pitted against each other one by one. This situation in Iran became an excuse for Saudi Arabia to sell oil at a higher price. While the world could not buy Iranian oil, the Arabs sold more oil. And the expected coup took place in Iran. The Shah of Iran, who was brought to power by the USA and the British, was a complete US puppet.

Within the scope of the GMEP, no oil-producing country could be allowed to extract its own oil and make it available for its people’s use.

As we know from recent history, hundreds of bloody coups have been carried out to this day in all countries producing oil or minerals, such as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. Whenever someone wanted to nationalize their energy and use it for their people in the whole world geography, especially in Africa, 'democracy' was brought to those countries every time. As can be understood from its brief history above, the project that we all hear about as the GMEP in recent history is actually the bloody history of how the 7 Sisters companies could exploit all the world’s energy. Many heads of state cannot come to power without being a supporter of this project, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

The only state in the world that escaped the oppression of this project is the Republic of Turkey, which won its independence by waging the War of Independence under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. For this reason, Baron de Guy Rothschild even said, 'Because of Atatürk, we had to postpone our plans for 50 years and establish the State of Israel later.' In the last century, from the weapons sold to guerrillas in Nicaragua to the military coup carried out in Panama, from corruption in the Philippines, one of the poorest countries in the world, to the genocide that led to the massacre of 1 million Tutsis in a month in Uganda, the hand of these 7 Sisters is at the root of all the wars that have taken place.

As a result, the Republic of Turkey is in a different position from all the countries I have mentioned, both with its constitutional traditions and its independence movement. The main problem of Turkey is that it has not been able to bring a head of state who knows the real history I mentioned above to power for 79 years.