Liberating Kuwait from Iraq was the pretext for the Gulf War in 1991. But the president of the United States at the time, George H. W. Bush, confessed that the war was actually about oil, for there were several countries that had attacked their neighbors, but since there was no oil involved, a military response wasn't necessary. This time, a war will change the geopolitical map of the region, introducing the latest imperial power. Everybody knows the United States plans to maintain a prolonged and indefinite control in the heart of the Middle East. If that happens, Syria and Saudi Arabia would be surrounded by U.S. troops and military bases. Iran would be left with few friendly borders. The United States could then militarily intervene in any country in the region without needing to ask any other nation for access through their territory - as it has to do currently with Kuwait and Turkey in order to invade Iraq. The United States would no longer be a power with a strong regional presence through its coalition of allied countries; instead it would become a regional power capable of acting on its own accord. Beyond that, once in control of Iraq, the United States will appropriate the second largest oil reserves in the world and will be able to significantly alter the world oil market. The United States could rapidly increase oil production, causing lower prices and the weakening of OPEC countries like Libya, Iran and Venezuela. The United States will also be able to replenish its oil reserves, which will let it distance from Saudi Arabia, presently an inconvenient ally, and allow for a return to the development of the U.S. economy. With this war, the United States will then put into play its new plan for the Middle East. Looking to "modernize" the Arab countries along the lines of "Western" Israel, this region will now import the model of a liberal democracy and free markets. This is meant to set up a "war of civilizations" in the heart of the Middle East. It needs to be understood that destroying Arafat's government is also an integral part to this obsessive mission of "modernization" and "democracy." Beginning with Iraq and Palestine, free-market capitalism will be introduced to the entire region. Then, with military bases on the borders of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Turkey and Jordan, the U.S. will be able to pressure or threaten all of these countries – with direct military interventions -, and so spread this stain of "civilization" from within the "barbarism" of the Arab world. Theoretically, the United States has a military advantage that would allow it to impose a war for a short period of time. It would pay a relatively low price, regardless of the amount of victims, for acting without the basic political conditions for this type of intervention. Domestically, election-year campaigning will begin soon after, and Bush's re-election (or as some say: so Bush can be elected president of the United States) will be decided by the end of next year. Bush will go back to a strategy that, up to now, has served him well: a climate of hysteria and a country under the threat of terrorist attack. Internationally, if the United States can finish this war in its favor, it will have been able to transform force into a legitimate argument, with the so-called "international community" collaborating or colluding with U.S. interests and aggressions. But the world will be more, not less, unstable. It will also only be the first in a series of wars and actions of indiscriminate use of force and disregard for any kind of international legality. We will have the latest empire. The colonial British Empire would militarily occupy any territory as if it were a part of its domain. In the twentieth century, the United States showed its imperial hegemony by combining ideological influence with economic exploitation and dependence, as well as military intervention. This new U.S. Empire of the twenty-first century combines elements of colonial domination - as it has already done in Afghanistan and wants to do in Iraq -, with ideological and economic domination, while trying to build a global empire based on its definitive military superiority. But the United States will claim that it is promoting liberal political and economic ideals like human rights and freedom of expression. But this argument – based on the free-market economic model - falls apart when everything can be bought or sold. This is the fallacy of liberalism as a political or ideological system which tries to embody freedom and democracy, but also spread discrimination, the disregard of laws and the domination of the weak. It is time for another world that looks for a renaissance of humanism and solidarity through different kind of politics, economics, culture and values. The United States, the privileged offspring of capitalism, obscenely exposes itself and pushes the limits of a society where only strongest and richest win. The rest of us have two choices: free ourselves from this world or give into it. *Brazilian sociologist, professor at Universidad de Río de Janeiro Translation from Spanish to English: David Pegg