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Sensibly put. Sadaam is beginning to
look more and more like a pragmatist and less like a monster under this
scenario.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 10:24
AM
Subject: [Futurework] A much wider war is
possible
It would have been interesting to have been a fly
on the wall in Bush's office last week when news came through that the
northern oil pipeline from Iraq to Turkey was blown up for the fifth time.
After all, the revenue from it was supposed to pay for Iraq's reconstruction
and compensate the Americans for their humanitarian gesture in destroying
Saddam (?).
But, sadly for Bush's plans, all this was not to be.
Saddam's nasty Baathist types and other supporters have been in destructive
mode, and now the Americans (via their control of Soma, the Iraqi oil
authority) are having to consider pumping the oil southwards and out through
the Gulf.
But you can be sure that they are going to have even worse
problems in the south before very long. Even though this is further away from
Saddam's home terrority around Tikrit, the south is overwhelmingly Shia
territory. So far, the Shias have been quiet because they've been relieved
that the Baa'thists and the Sunni Moslems have been taken off their backs. But
they have their own extremist clerics, too, and they've already organised
their own militia which appears in full public view, Kalashnikovs and all, on
religious occasions -- much to the consternation of the occupation
troops. The Americans ordered them to disband and give up their arms by
13 September but this deadline was quietly ignored. The Americans dare not
enforce their command -- they know that they're only in Iraq on
sufference.
What the Shias are waiting for -- so far, quite patiently
-- is a Constitution that is going to guarantee that the Baathist types and
the Sunni Muslims are going to be off their backs forever and that their 60%
majority of the population will be consolidated without any possibility of
reversion to former servitude. They will be demanding at least that some of
the most important portfolios are put under their belt -- such as the Defence
Ministry (just as happens, in fact, in the case of the Wahhabi-controlled
Saudi Arabia). If they don't get complete assurance about their continued
survivability -- then we can expect trouble. To satisfy the United Nations,
the Americans have promised the new Constitution within six months.
And
blowing up oil pipelines in the south will be the least of it. There could
quite easily be an insurrection that could be wider and much more complex than
even the Americans could control. Immediately to the east of Iraq's Shia
territory is, of course, Shia-controlled Iran, and immediately to the south is
Kuwait, the Shia majority in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and
Shia-dominated Bahrein. All this region could be in turmoil in the next few
months unless the Americans can produce a Constitution that will have
miraculous features to suit the Shias. There is little hope of this, I
suggest.
So what should the evolutionary economist say to all this? He
would say: "Pay attention to what anthropologists and evolutionary
psychologists would say". Were they to be asked, they would say that it is
impossible to associate such different cultures as the Kurds, the Sunni
Muslims and the Shia Muslims all together in one nation-state unless you
oppress them mightily, and even then continue oppression for at least two or
three generations -- as indeed the English did in the case of the Welsh and
the Scots -- until some minimal common culture arises. The evolutionary
scientist would say: "Give each of them their own territory, help them all
with hospitals and schools and whatever other specialisations they might need
and then leave them alone." Then and only then the Americans might have
a chance of being able to secure future oil supplies from what-is-now-Iraq
after voluntary negotiations with whichever culture happens to have the
oilfields in their territory.
Keith
Hudson
<<<<
IRAQ MAY RE-ROUTE OIL VIA SOUTH TO BOOST
EXPORTS
Javier Blas and Dan Robertsw
Iraq is preparing to
increase oil exports by re-routing supplies around sabotaged pipelines,
according to European oil executives who met Iraqi officials in London last
week.
Private talks held at a London hotel left western buyers of Iraqi
crude more confident that exports would soon recover closer to prewar levels.
But the plan to divert oil from the Kirkuk field, in northern Iraq, through a
strategic pipeline to the south confirms fears that the damage inflicted on
the pipeline to Turkey is greater than previously admitted. It also helps
explain the surprise decision taken by Opec oil ministers last month to cut
production quotas, partly due to worries that rising Iraqi production would
force international prices down.
Iraq increased production to an
average of 1.45m barrels per day (b/d) last month -- up 500,000 b/d from
August, but well below pre-war production of 2.8m b/d.
"It's hard to
estimate exact production because they are pumping some excess oil back into
the ground, but it would be quite significant if they reversed the flow of
this strategic pipeline," said Leo Drollas, an analyst with the Centre for
Global Energy Studies. "The September figures are in line with the recovery
pattern, but if they want to go to 1.8m b/d from the south, they would have to
bring oil down from the north."
Sabotage has badly hit the supply of
oil from the Kirkuk region, which before the war accounted for for close to 50
per cent of Iraqi exports.
Yesterday Reuters quoted oil ministry
sources in Baghdad warning that alternatives to the pipeline running to Turkey
would not be operational for 6-12 months.
Nevertheless, oil executives
meeting officials in London said Iraq was confident about increasing export
volumes by using new routes. The message was "back to business as usual", said
one oil executive.
"They [Iraqi officials] look more relaxed," said
another oil executive, who met Mohammed al-Jibouri, the head of Somo, the
marketing arm of the Iraqi oil ministry. "But privately they acknowledge
serious problems with Kirkuk oil."
A pipeline to the south could enable
exports either through Saudi Arabia or Iraq's Gulf ports. A more remote
option, the Iraqi officials told companies, would be to use the Iraq-Syria
pipeline, a move that would be unattractive to a US administration putting
pressure on Damascus over its support for militant Palestinian groups and
alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction.
The London meeting
is believed to be the first round of discussions among Iraqi oil officials and
western oil companies outside the Middle East since the war began in
March.
Previously, Somo officials have met oil company representatives
in Dubai, Kuwait City and Baghdad.
Among the oil companies at the
London meeting were ChevronTexaco, Total, Repsol YPF, Cepsa and Vitol. Oil
industry insiders say the event shows a growing confidence in Baghdad about
oil exports.
>>>>
Financial Times -- 6 October
2003
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
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