e. magill's Intrigue | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Great American Oil ConspiracyIt has become the rallying cry of those who oppose war in Iraq that our government is only proposing military action in that country because of a vested interest in Iraqi oil. The anti-war movement claims that there is no connection between the war on terror and Iraq, that Iraq is not interested in using weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraq does not pose a clear and present danger to the United States. President Bush, says the movement, is only interested in oil.I decided to investigate this hypothesis, starting with how valuable Iraqi oil would be to the United States, assuming we could send in the military, prevent the oil’s destruction, and then claim the oil as our own when the incursion was complete (and not taking into account the cost of this incursion). According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Iraq supplied 3.44% of the world’s petroleum in 2000 (Iraq’s 2,586,000 b/d divided by the world’s total of 75,141,000 b/d) [1]. OPEC reports that, currently, Iraq’s production is only about 7,000 more barrels per day than it was in the EIA’s 2000 report. Also according to OPEC, the value of Iraq’s petroleum exports is currently about 12.7 billion US dollars [2]. Indeed, that does seem like a lot. However, when looked at in respect to other countries, Iraq’s oil production doesn’t seem quite so large. The EIA reports that Iraq’s neighbor to the East, Iran, produces about 5.02% of the world’s petroleum, and that Iraq’s neighbor to the West, Saudi Arabia, accounts for a whopping 12.12%. In addition, the US, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Norway, Russia, and China all produce higher quantities of oil than Iraq. [1]
Therefore, if the US president wanted to make war in the middle east with the explicit goal of getting his hands on valuable and marketable oil, his sights would be set on either Iran or Saudi Arabia--both of which allegedly have links to terrorism--long before he’d consider Iraq. Intelligence sources even say that Iran is trying to get its hands on nuclear weapons [3], has links to Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority [4], has ties to the bombing of a US military installation at Khobar [5], and that it’s been supplying munitions to the enemy in Afghanistan [6]. In addition, there have been a few highly publicized incidences of possible connections between Saudi Arabia and the attacks of September 11, when 15 out of 19 crazed hijackers were Saudi [7, 8]. Surely, if we were thirsty for oil, our potential petroleum gains would be much greater in Iran or Saudi Arabia than Iraq, and we’d have a comparable amount of justification. However, since Saudi Arabia is an ally that supplies us with 14.26% of our total import [1], we have every reason to seek a diplomatic solution to their sponsorship of terrorism. In addition, Saudi Arabia is not interested in developing weapons of mass destruction and most of the royal family support the fact that some of our military resides within the boundaries of their country. While Osama bin Laden may despise infidels within his land, the public support we receive from the Saudi government is a little more reassuring. Saddam Hussein, it should be noted, offers us no public support. In fact, all he offers the United States is hostile rhetoric. But what about Iran? The only reason the president seems to offer as to why we aren’t making war with Iran is that there is a huge youth movement within the country to tear down the old government and build a democracy that is more stable. The Iranian government, it seems, is on the brink of its own collapse. Surely, if we wanted their oil, there’d be no reason for us not to go in and help weigh that government down. It would also be markedly easier than attacking Iraq, since there would be few worries about biological attack.
All the reasons that make Iraq a more difficult strategical situation are the same reasons that we are attacking its regime instead of its more profitable neighbors. Also, Saddam Hussein, it has been reported, has already rigged his oil fields to explode if we go in. Would it really be worth the risk? Of course it would be, because a vested interest in oil has little to do with our military aggression towards Iraq. We are just slightly more concerned with terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, the humanitarian crisis, repeated violations of international law, and the Iraqi history of mass murder. However, having said all of that, I will acknowledge that dependency on foreign oil is a major problem facing the United States today. While we do produce about 46% of the oil that we consume, we do import approximately 10,637,000 barrels a day, which is roughly 14.16% of the world’s total supply [1]. This is unacceptable; it opens up far too many diplomatic poker chips that other nations, like Saudi Arabia, can throw around us. It is a problem that President Bush has been trying to solve since before the attacks of September 11. He earned a reputation for being obsessed with oil while attempting to solve the country’s energy crisis, proposing oil drilling in ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico and increased importation from Russia. Of all of his proposals, only the importation from Russia was successful, even though it didn’t eliminate the problem of foreign dependency. Most recently, Bush proposed, during his State of the Union address, $1.2 billion in hydrogen car research “to make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy” [10]. This does not sound to me like a man obsessed with foreign oil. Put succinctly, I’m not buying it. I don’t believe the Great American Oil Conspiracy, regardless of from whom I hear it, be it a crowd of protesters in front of the White House, an inflamed Tariq Aziz, a French diplomat, Nelson Madela, Susan Sarandon, an MSNBC anchor, or Al Gore. The numbers and the logic just don’t seem to point to the paranoid conclusion that so many cynical people are all too willing to accept. (This list does not represent the entirety of my research on this subject) -e. magill, 02/03/2003 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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