Syriana=Iraq: Policy Failure in the Middle East
America(n) in the Middle East: Nowhere to Go I saw Stephan Gaghan's Syriana today, starring George Clooney plus an extra thirty pounds (above in what is supposed to be Tehran) as Bob Barnes, a CIA Middle East operative who is betrayed by his bosses in Langley, who in turn are the puppets of their Masters, the members of what I describe in my new book Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East (see link) as the "petro-military complex: The political-business nexus of U.S. government officials, oil executives and the oligarchs ruling the Arab oil states (add to these the autocrats in charge of the newely independent oil producing states in Central Asia). The very talented Gaghan who had also written the script for Traffic , the cynical and depressing film about America's "war on drugs," did a marvelous job in the equally cynical and depressing Syriana . "Syriana" is a fictious oil emirate in the Persian Gulf and the character of Clooney/Barnes and the ...