U.S. Plans Post-Iraq Troop Increase in Persian Gulf … U.S. Planning Troop Buildup in Gulf After Exit From Iraq … The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran … After unsuccessfully pressing both the Obama administration and the Iraqi government to permit as many as 20,000 American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2011, the Pentagon is now drawing up an alternative … With an eye on the threat of a belligerent Iran, the administration is also seeking to expand military ties with the six nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. – New York Times

Dominant Social Theme: Well, then there's the GCC. What's that? Nevah heard of it!

Free-Market Analysis: In a series of articles, we've discussed what seems to us to be a Pentagon/NATO plan to divide the Middle East up into warring factions. This plan is being staged in two parts. First, numerous secular states such as Libya, the Ivory Coast, Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia and now Syria are being destabilized to create an Islamic "crescent" that will serve as a putative enemy of the West.

The second, or concomitant phase is to strengthen and expand the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and then to create tension or even military action between these two factions. Additional tensions are being brought to bear via Israel, Iran and, of course, the Palestinians. You can read some of our articles here:

Anglosphere Plan to Create Islamic Crescent Yielding Results?

Obama's Violent Wars Against Third-World Secularism

As we can see from the above New York Times article excerpted, stage two of this apparent plan is now being put into effect. The Islamic crescent is well on its way to being realized with Muammar Gaddafi's death and the triumph of the Libyan/al Qaeda Jihadists. In Tunisia, an Islamic party has begun to carve out a role as the country's leading political force. The Islamic Brotherhood (with its CIA connections) is ascendant in Egypt and growing in popularity elsewhere.

Now what is needed is to strengthen the GCC? Of course, there must be a reason to do so, and the ejection of the US from Iraq has just provided the Pentagon with an appropriate justification. "Security needs" will funnel arms and funds to the GCC, which is currently – coincidentally – being expanded to include Jordon and Morocco. The US's and NATO's influence is about to become vastly larger in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Here's some more from the article:

The administration and the military are trying to foster a new "security architecture" for the Persian Gulf that would integrate air and naval patrols and missile defense. The size of the standby American combat force to be based in Kuwait remains the subject of negotiations, with an answer expected in coming days. Officers at the Central Command headquarters here declined to discuss specifics of the proposals, but it was clear that successful deployment plans from past decades could be incorporated into plans for a post-Iraq footprint in the region.

For example, in the time between the Persian Gulf war in 1991 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States Army kept at least a combat battalion — and sometimes a full combat brigade — in Kuwait year-round, along with an enormous arsenal ready to be unpacked should even more troops have been called to the region. "Back to the future" is how Maj. Gen. Karl R. Horst, Central Command's chief of staff, described planning for a new posture in the Gulf.

He said the command was focusing on smaller but highly capable deployments and training partnerships with regional militaries. "We are kind of thinking of going back to the way it was before we had a big 'boots on the ground' presence," General Horst said. "I think it is healthy. I think it is efficient. I think it is practical." Mr. Obama and his senior national security advisers have sought to reassure allies and answer critics, including many Republicans, that the United States will not abandon its commitments in the Persian Gulf even as it winds down the war in Iraq and looks ahead to doing the same in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

All this is so much blather, of course, or seems to be anyway. Two things are going on in our view. First, the Anglosphere power elite needs military tension and maybe even a large regional war to distract increasingly furious Western middle classes from increasingly depressed economies.

Second, in an era of reduced military resources, the best way to retain control of regions and countries is via the old strategy of divide and conquer. This seems to us what's going on in the Middle East currently and it's too bad the mainstream media – let alone the 'Net alternative media – won't cover it.

There are corollary benefits to control, of course: Increased oil and other natural resources. We're also resigned to reading a great deal more about the necessity for increased offensive posture in the area by NATO, et al., in order to counteract the "threat" posed by China and, of course, the ongoing danger from "terrorism."

But really, the paradigm that proves out over and over is the one having to do with a new world order. The Anglosphere elite behind these strategic moves in the Middle East is not very much interested in raw materials or in containing China. It is interested in consolidating world power and a "divide and conquer" strategy is congruent within this context.

Let others explain that the world's problems are caused by greedy capitalist corporations eager to exploit developing countries. For us, that's just a façade, a meme floated by the elites to obscure the reality of an ongoing conquest and consolidation.