Imperial Anxieties http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad03092011.html

American policy in the Arab world is built on three pillars. The first is its reliance upon the region for oil, which must be allowed to flow freely into the car culture of Europe and the U.S. The second pillar is that its allies in the Arab world (such as Ben Ali, Muammar Qaddafi, Mubarak and the Saudis) must stand firm with the U.S. in its war on terror. Mubarak's security chief, Omar Suleiman, had opened his jails to the "ghost prisoners" of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Qaddafi had closely collaborated with U.S. intelligence services and with Suleiman in the transit and torture of suspected Al Qaeda members (such as Sheikh al-Libi). The third, of course, is that the Arab allies had to tether their own populations' more radical ambitions vis-a-vis Israel. Egypt accepted a U.S. annual bribe of $1.3 billion in order to honour its peace agreement with Israel, and this has allowed Israel to conduct its asymmetrical warfare against the Palestinians and the Lebanese. The maintenance of these three pillars is a fundamental goal of U.S. foreign policy in the Arab world.