U.S. Fought a War for Oil -- and Lost
In a letter to the Financial Times, Ian Rutledge (author of Addicted to Oil) looks at spiraling oil prices and argues that no one should be surprised. He recounts a 2001 report by the Council on Foreign Relations warning of a coming energy crisis brought on by growing consumption rates and dependence on Middle Eastern oil. The Council urged that the U.S. “develop a strategic plan to encourage reopening to foreign investment in the important states of the Middle East,” while conceding that political considerations made Saudi Arabia and Kuwait unlikely targets for western interference.
“However,” Rutledge writes, “there was an alternative”:
“However,” Rutledge writes, “there was an alternative”:
In the words of ESA Inc (Boston), the US's leading energy security analysts: “One of the best things for our supply security would be liberate Iraq”; words echoed by William Kristol, the Republican party ideologist, in testimony to the House Subcommittee on the Middle East on May 22 2002 that as far as oil was concerned, “Iraq is more important than Saudi Arabia.”UPDATE 2:15 p.m.: The U.S. may have lost the war for oil, but who won? The CEOs of oil companies, it turns out. According to the Center for American Progress, they were, “as a group, the highest paid executives in 2004, raking in a median compensation package – not including potentially lucrative gains from stock options – of $16.6 million. That was a gain of 109 percent over the previous year.”
So when, according to the former head of ExxonMobil's Gulf operations, “Iraqi exiles approached us saying, you can have our oil if we can get back in there,” the Bush administration decided to use its overwhelming military might to create a pliant - and dependable - oil protectorate in the Middle East and achieve that essential “opening” of the Gulf oilfields.
But in the words of another US oil company executive, “it all turned out a lot more complicated than anyone had expected.” Instead of the anticipated post-invasion rapid expansion of Iraqi production (an expectation of an additional 2m b/d entering the world market by now), the continuing violence of the insurgency has prevented Iraqi exports from even recovering to pre-invasion levels.
In short, the US appears to have fought a war for oil in the Middle East, and lost it. The consequences of that defeat are now plain for all to see.
5 Comments:
While I have often argued that if Iraq HADN'T had oil we wouldn't be there and therefore, people on the Right are in a fanasty-land to think this war had nothing to do with oil, I also think it's wrong to think that was the primary motive. The neocons really do believe this was good for US security, which might be even scarier. I have written numerous pieces on why Iraq NOT having WMD was the luckiest think that ever happened to us.
J.S.
http://voicesofreason.info
VOR,
So what do you think the primary motive was, then? Having read a fair amount about PNAC, resource control is definitely one of their foundational issues which led them to the conclusion that American Empire was the right thing to do.
Invading Afghanistan may have had other motives, but what would they be in Iraq (which demonstrably had nothing to do with 911, was the most secular state in the region, and already was throttled by the embargo and no-fly zones)?
Bear in mind that many putative US allies, even in the region, have much worse human rights records, much better access to nuclear materials, and much closer ties to radical Muslim terrorism.
The major motive was the belief that disarming Saddam would be a good thing (even though if he had actually had WMD they would now be in the hands of terrorists for sure) and that since Iraq is a relatively properous, educated, and secular country it was the right place to begin this democracy project. Of course, I repeat again that if Iraq didn't have oil we wouldn't have invaded but that doesn't mean it was the primary motive- the Left needs to look a little deeper than that.
J.S.
http://voicesofreason.info
Can't speak for the entire Left (whatever that is), but this liberal has looked into it in depth.
I suggest you read up on Project for a New American Century. Here's a good place to start. Ignore their counterspin articles and just dig into the core philosophy.
The major excuse was disarming Saddam, but it was apparent that he had already been contained on that front.
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