The complex twists of Syriana distract as much as they inform, finds Hani Mustafa It should come as no surprise that among the many attempts to answer questions that American policies in the Middle East have raised some are cinematic. Syriana, directed by Stephen Gaghan and written by Robert Baer, is one such film, and it posits American thirst for oil as the main driving force of its foreign policy. Pointing to this assumption is the dialogue between Nasser Al-Sibai (Alexander Siddig, a British actor of Sudanese origin), a prince from the Gulf, and his economic adviser Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon). The prince asks what the American lawyers are telling his younger brother, Prince Mishal, only to be told by Bryan that 90 per cent of all remaining oil reserves lie in the Arabian Gulf and the West is desperate to control them. Reduced to its bare bones the film's basic premise is simple. But then it contrives several subplots, underlining its subtitle that "Everything is Connected", allowing these storylines to run parallel, and occasionally to cross. Syriana begins with a group of foreign workers, from India, Pakistan and South East Asia, employed in an unnamed Gulf state. The details of their lives, and the insecure working conditions they are forced to endure, are foregrounded, with much of the plot focussing on Wassim Khan, a young Pakistani played by Mazhar Munir who, after losing his job in an oil company and unable to find another, joins an Islamic school which is, of course, a fertile recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda members in search of potential suicide bombers. The school becomes the site of two intersecting stories. The first involves Al-Qaeda's presence in the school, the second CIA agent Bob Barnes (George Clooney). Clooney, in Tehran buying one of two missiles from a weapons' dealer, discovers the second missile has gone to a blue-eyed Egyptian called Mohamed Sheikh Agiza (Amr Waked). Agiza is the Al-Qaeda member who will later recruit Wassim. Then there is a third sub-plot, centering around Prince Hamed Al-Sibai (Nadim Sawalha), the ruler of the small state in which most of the action takes place. The prince has two sons, Prince Nasser, the foreign minister behind an oil deal between his country and China and who is committed to seeing oil revenues ploughed back into development projects, and Prince Mishal (Akbar Kurtha), who is less patriotic and has personal ambitions. Then comes the fourth, and perhaps most convoluted of the subplots, involving the merger of two of the largest oil companies in the US -- Konix, which recently lost its contracts in the Gulf because of Prince Nasser, and Kelen, which has exploration concessions in Kazakhstan. At some point, during the machinations that accompany the planned merger, Prince Meshal is met by representatives of one of the oil companies and asked subtly what help he might need to ascend to the throne. Meanwhile, it emerges that Bob is far from being flavour of the month with his superiors. He insists on filing reports that do not fit in with their schemes and in one meeting with a National Security official -- tellingly an African- American woman -- he pours water on her schemes to promote reforms in Iran by suggesting that the ayatollahs will not willingly give up power. Events become even more complicated when Bob is asked to assassinate Prince Nasser in Beirut with the help of Moussawi, a mole in Hizbollah. But Moussawi, it turns out, is a double agent in the pay of the Iranians. It is these, and other, anomalies that make Bob intent on discovering the real motives behind the assassination orders, and eventually he uncovers the fact that they are being dictated by commercial concerns, all intimately bound up with the merger between the two oil companies, and nothing more. Nasser is, in the end, assassinated by the CIA, which had previously attempted to disassociate itself from an earlier, failed assassination attempt, though little effort is put into justifying the about turn dramatically. This complicated overlapping of different storylines comes at the expense of detail. CIA agent Bob delivers his Arabic lines quickly and unintelligibly, making it clear Clooney had received little, if any, coaching in Arabic pronunciation. In another scene a teacher in the Islamic school contrasts the strength of the Quran with the liberalism of Western societies. But the editing of the speech ended up making the teacher look nervous and distracted, hardly the kind of equivocation one would expect of someone espousing such extremist orthodoxy. The greatest failing, though, was when details began to hold back the progress of the film, as was the case with the overcomplicated merger between the two oil companies. Yet it was never quite explained what the initial objections of the administration to the merger were based upon, nor was the leverage of big business on US foreign policy fully explored, leaving many of the audience feeling unnecessarily distracted. But then this was a problem, albeit less pronounced, of many scenes. Perhaps we should be thankful, given the existing complications, the film did not attempt to sketch in the war on terror or the implications and motivations of White House rhetoric on spreading democracy in the Middle East. Whatever, Clooney did manage an Oscar for best supporting actor though that, believe many, was by way of compensation for his anti-McCarthy Good Night and Good Luck being resolutely ignored by the Academy. Everything is, after all, connected.
