“The US consumes 26 percent of the world’s oil and gas, 70 percent of which is in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who hate us. I fear for what my kids will inherit,” states Stephen Gaghan, the writer/director of the new holiday season movie hit, “Syriana.” To try to understand this confusing-on-purpose plot, one might seek out what drives Gaghan and some of the other players behind this thriller focusing on the Middle East.
The movie is supposedly “loosely based” on a 2002 book by former CIA agent, Bob Baer, entitled “See No Evil.” Baer’s book which is subtitled, “The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism” keys on his own tales of serving the CIA in the Middle East and includes much self aggrandizement about his work there.
Baer later wrote in 2003 another book entitled, “Sleeping with the Devil: How America Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude,” and various other articles about Saudi Arabia in 2003 including a May 2003 piece in the Atlantic Monthly magazine called “The Fall of the House of Saud.”
One begins to see a pattern forming behind the movie’s intent with statements such as Gaghan’s “hands of Islamic fundamentalist” comment and utterances from other principals involved in the film like Baer. After a recent screening of “Syriana” to the Washington D.C. Press Club in a panel discussion, Baer said, “The unfortunate fact is that until we find an alternate source of energy, we depend on the Middle East. The second unfortunate thing is that any oil company, whether international or American, has to be engaged in corruption in order to secure these oil sources in the Middle East.”
Other members of Baer’s panel interestingly included Stephen Gaghan, Jon Coifman of the National Resources Defense Council, Dan Becker of the Sierra Club, Cliff May of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy and Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy. Strange bedfellows, you say. Well maybe it is not so strange when you start to put all of the pieces together.
In any case, what difference does a fictional film make when you are dealing with “real” world problems every day. The line between reality and fiction becomes very thin when one goes to a movie like “Syriana”. Though the movie issues a disclaimer which states that no actual personalities or incidents are depicted in the film, there are enough similarities to real events and people that it becomes very easy to confuse reality with fiction. “Syriana” does state that it uses “archival footage” throughout the movie and, in at least one scene, a previous actual king of Saudi Arabia is seen shaking the hand of one of the actors in a photo.
Journalist Walter Lippman spoke of “pictures in our heads” over eighty years ago. He stated, “The subtlest and most pervasive of all influences are those which create and maintain the repertory of stereotypes. We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those perceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the process of perceptions.” Does a film like Syriana give rise to “perceptions” or the reinforcement of perceptions and stereotypes? When we dig a little deeper, we see there is more to this movie than what we view on the screen.
Before proceeding, let’s note that almost all of the film reviewers point out that it is a very confusing movie and it requires deep concentration and thought to decipher it. And the chaotic telling of a confusing story may have more intent than most of the reviewers have perceived.
Basically, “Syriana” tells a story of political intrigue framed against corruption in the global oil industry with a diabolical Middle East as the backdrop. In it, you have a reform-minded Gulf prince allocating oil concessions to the Chinese with American oil tycoons plotting with the CIA to oust the prince. Additionally disillusioned Pakistani oil field workers in Saudi Arabia train to become suicide bombers, while American petroleum industry officials and attorneys form coalitions to liberate Iran. Gaghan utilizes every stereotype imaginable to tell his story. And the cast led by George Clooney, who also helped to produce the movie, is excellent.
Possibly even more interesting and intriguing than the movie itself is the cast of characters, organizations and circumstances behind the production and promotion of the film. The choice of title, “Syriana,” was described by writer Gaghan as “a term that I heard in think tanks...it seemed to stand for the hypothetical redrawing of the boundaries of the Middle East.”
According to a Los Angeles Times article, Gaghan spent significant movie research time with neo-conservative think tanks in Washington and “interviewed members of the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank that is considered the neocon incubator of the Iraq War.” The article goes on to point out that Gaghan also visited well-known hawk Richard Perle in his home to conduct further film research.
However, a most intriguing twist to the presentation of “Syriana” to the public is the creation of a congruent social action group to further refine and complement the message that “Syriana” conveys to the public. In January of 2004, Jeff Skoll one of the cofounders of eBay, the online sales giant, formed Participant Productions which was the primary financier of “Syriana”. Skoll who retired from eBay before age 35 with reportedly almost $4 billion, decided to use a significant portion of his fortune to “use the power of cinematic storytelling to stimulate involvement in social issues.” After a couple of other film attempts, Skoll connected with Clooney on “Syriana”.
Skoll and his cohorts then formed Participate.net, a sister organization to stimulate popular action based on his films. If one goes to the Warner Brothers (distribution company) official “Syriana” site, you will find that Participate.net has formed yet another specific social action group especially for this movie called Oil Change. Oil Change is organizing environmental groups and their supporters to seemingly shift their message from just cutting down on fossil fuels on environmental concerns, to national security concerns. And when one looks even deeper into sister advocate groups behind Oil Change, you find the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) and Set America Free.
IAGS is headed by Gal Luft, a former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces and Ann Korin. Korin acknowledged to the Associated Press that she “couldn’t care less” about global warming or protecting the environment from oil drilling. “I’m involved in this because most of the world’s oil reserves are owned by countries that finance people that want to kill us, that finance radical Islam,” she said.
And IAGS organized the Set America Free coalition which includes neocons Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, Thomas Neumann of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, Meyrav Wurmser of the Hudson Institute and R. James Woolsey of the Committee for the Present Danger amongst others.
If it looks strange to see all of these hardcore right wing neocons going “green”, you weren’t the first to notice this. But, you see, truth is often stranger than fiction. And real life is sometimes more complicated than movies like “Syriana”.
