Hi All,
I am an environmental scientist by education and my latest research is on
sustainable development. As near as I can tell there is no shortage of oil.
There may be shortages of production, shortages of distribution but for at
least another generation there will be no shortage of oil due to lack of
material. Here is the key reasoning. We still have not tapped all the
available reserves on land. All the Gulf war stuff is about underdeveloped
Iraqi oil and the as yet untouched and shallow (read highly profitable) oil
in the Azerbijan region. Oil is produced under oceans. Although we have
found most of the terrestrial based oil, it represents only 1/8 the planets
surface area. That leaves 7/8 of the planet where we have hardly begun the
search for new sources. A recent National Geographic article displayed new
technology that was enabling drilling off the continental shelf in water
1500 feet deep. Now oil from that depth won't be cheap but it still will be
available. With prices at $57/ barrel it becomes economically feasable to
look even deeper.
The point and the problem is that there will be no lack of oil. The problem
will be from the climate change that is already here and will only worsen as
we convert fossilized carbon from solid and liquid from into gaseous carbon
dioxide. I recently rewrote a global warming headline, " Hemingway turns in
his grave as the Snows of Kilamanjaro dissappear from the Earth forever.
That's the problem folks.
Sincerely,
Tom Irwin
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Addison
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 3/29/05 2:28 PM
Subject: [Biofuel] Mapping The Oil Motive
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/mapping_the_oil_motive.php
Mapping The Oil Motive
Michael T. Klare
March 18, 2005
The Bush administration has publicly advanced a number of reasons for
going to war in Iraq, from WMDs to the Iraqi people's need for
liberation. Michael Klare reviews the evidence that securing
America's source of oil was a decisive factor in the White House's
decision to invade-and looks at whether the administration succeeded.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies
at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil:
The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum
Dependency (Metropolitan Books)
What role did oil play in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq? If oil
did play a significant role, what, exactly, did President Bush and
his associates hope to accomplish in this regard? To what degree did
they succeed? These are questions that will no doubt occupy analysts
for many years to come, but that can and should be answered now-as
the American people debate the validity of the invasion and Bush
administration gears up for a possible war against Iran under
circumstances very similar to those prevailing in Iraq in early 2003.
In addressing these questions, it should be noted that the U.S.
invasion of Iraq was a matter of choice, not of necessity. The United
States did not act in response to an aggressive move by a hostile
power directed against this country or one of its allies, but rather
employed force on its own volition to advance (what the
administration viewed as) U.S. national interests. This means that we
cannot identify a precipitating action for war, but instead must
examine the calculus of costs and benefits that persuaded President
Bush to invade Iraq at that particular moment. On one side of this
ledger were the disincentives to war: the loss of American lives, the
expenditure of vast sums of money and the alienation of America's
allies. To outweigh these negatives, and opt for war, would require
powerful incentives. But what were they? This is the question that
has so bedeviled pundits and analysts since the onset of combat.
It is highly doubtful that any one factor tipped the balance toward
invasion. A war of choice is rarely precipitated by a single
objective, but rather stems from a combination of contributing
factors. In this case, many come to mind: legitimate concern over
Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction; an inclination to
demonstrate the effectiveness of the administration's "pre-emptive"
war doctrine; increased security for Israel; the promotion of
democracy in the Middle East; U.S. domination of the Persian Gulf
region; and a thirst for Iraqi oil. All of these, and possibly
others, are likely to have figured to some degree in the president's
decision to invade. What is difficult is to ascertain is how these
factors were ranked in the administration's calculus; what we can do,
however, is to put them into some sort of context, to show how they
formed an overpowering nexus of motives that outweighed the
disincentives to war. And here, oil proves essential.
The starting point for such an assessment is the locale for this war:
the Persian Gulf region, home to two-thirds of the world's known oil
reserves. For more than 40 years, U.S. foreign policy has been
guided by America's growing dependence on oil supplies from the
Middle East. Embraced by both Republicans and Democrats, this policy
is known as the Carter doctrine because it was articulated most
clearly by President Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton have all acted under the
banner of the Carter Doctrine: supporting Iraq during the Iran-Iraq
war (1980-88), opposing Iraq by liberating Kuwait in 1991, imposing
sanctions and no-fly zones between 1991 and 2003. As I described in
the December issue of The Progressive, Bush and the neocons used the
banner of the war on terror after 9/11 to massively expand American
capacity to employ force in the pursuit of global oil reserves.
Setting The Stage For War
When George W. Bush entered the White House in February 2001, Iraq
was still under sanctions, and Saddam Hussein remained in power. At
this point, Bush ordered two major reviews of American policy: an
assessment of the effectiveness of sanctions by then Secretary of
State Colin Powell, and a review if U.S. energy policy by Vice
President Dick Cheney. Although prompted by separate concerns-the
survival of Saddam Hussein in one case, persistent energy shortages
in the other-these two reviews both focused attention on developments
in the Persian Gulf and together set the stage for the 2003 invasion
of Iraq.
The first review, completed at some point in the late spring,
concluded that sanctions had not only failed in their intended
purpose of unseating Hussein, but had also strengthened his position
by making it appear that the United States was victimizing the poor
and downtrodden population of Iraq. To make matters worse, Hussein
appeared to be using the United Nation's "oil for food" program to
accumulate funds for the acquisition of arms and illicit weapons
technology.
The second review, released as the National Energy Policy on May 17,
2001, also described a worrisome situation: domestic oil production
in the United States was in irreversible decline at a time of soaring
energy demand, and so the nation was becoming increasingly dependent
on imported energy. But while expressing concern over the dangers
inherent in this situation, the authors of the report concluded that
the United States had no choice but to increase its reliance on
imports in order to fuel the nation's cars and factories. And
because so much of the world's remaining untapped petroleum lay in
the Persian Gulf area, U.S. energy policy would have to concentrate
on gaining greater access to these supplies. "By any estimation,
Middle East oil producers will remain central to world oil security,"
the NEP affirmed. Hence, "The Gulf will be a primary focus of U.S.
international energy policy.
The NEP also made it clear that the existing oil infrastructure in
the Persian Gulf was inadequate to produce the much higher levels of
oil that would be needed to satisfy projected U.S. and international
requirements in the years ahead. According to the 2001 edition of
the Department of Energy's International Energy Outlook, the Gulf
countries would have to nearly double their combined output, from
approximately 24 million barrel per day (mbd) to 45 million barrels,
in order to meet anticipated world demand in 2020-a Herculean task
that exceeded the capacities of many of the region's prevailing
regimes, including those in Iran and Iraq. Only if U.S. firms were
allowed to come in and take over production in these Gulf countries,
the NEP hinted, would it be possible to quench the world's insatiable
thirst for oil.
The two reviews thus reached several complementary conclusions: the
sanctions regime was in disarray; Hussein continued to pose a threat
to Persian Gulf security; the United States needed more Persian Gulf
oil; and ways had to be found to insert U.S. oil firms into the
region. How, then, to reconcile all of these concerns? In the end,
only one option promised to secure all of these objectives: the
forcible removal of Saddam Hussein and his replacement by a regime
disposed to satisfy U.S. energy objectives. And so, in late 2001 or
early 2002, the administration decided to invade Iraq.
That these various factors were intertwined in the administration's
thinking is clearly evident from the most important speech given by
Vice President Dick Cheney on the reasons for war, in an address
before the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Aug. 25, 2002. "Should all
[of Hussein's WMD] ambitions be realized, the implications would be
enormous," he declared. "Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of
terror and a set atop 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam
Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire
Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy
supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region,
and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear
blackmail." From this perspective, inaction was unthinkable.
Hands In the Honeypot
Having decided to eliminate Hussein, the Bush administration set out
to ensure that any successor regime would be predisposed to satisfy
U.S. energy objectives. Ahmad Chalabi, a former Iraqi banker who was
being groomed by the Department of Defense to serve as Iraq's future
ruler, was encouraged to meet with representatives U.S. energy firms
and arrange for their participation in the postwar rehabilitation of
Iraq's oil infrastructure. "American companies will have a big shot
at Iraqi oil," he promised after one such meeting. Meanwhile, the
Working Group on Oil and Energy-a collection of expatriate Iraqi oil
experts assembled by the Department of State-developed plans for the
privatization of Iraq's state-owned oil company and its acquisition
by foreign firms. And, to ensure that none of Iraq's oil assets
would be damaged by Saddam Hussein loyalists, the Pentagon assembled
a special force to seize Iraqi oilfields at the very onset of
hostilities.
And so the Bush administration went to war confidently, believing
that it would both eliminate a major threat to Persian Gulf stability
and ensure a substantial American role in the exploitation of Iraq's
prolific oil fields. All was set for this favorable outcome in April
2003, when triumphant American forces occupied the Oil Ministry
headquarters in downtown Baghdad, blithely ignoring the rampant
looting taking place in surrounding areas. But now, two years later,
the situation appears far less promising. We return, then, to our
final question: To what extent did the administration achieve its
intended objectives in Iraq?
Mission Accomplished?
Certainly, Saddam Hussein has been removed from office, and his
ability to wreak havoc in the Gulf has been eliminated. The Iraqi
National Oil Company (INOC) is now in the hands of American-installed
technocrats, and some progress has been made toward restoring
production to prewar levels. But it is scarcely apparent that the
Persian Gulf is more secure than it was two years ago, or that
America's ambitious oil objectives will ever be realized. By failing
to deploy sufficient numbers of ground troops in Iraq and imposing a
modicum of civic order, the United States squandered its initial
advantage and opened the space for a virulent insurgency and the
emergence of ethnic and religious factionalism. This, in turn, has
curtailed Iraq's oil output and threatened to tear the INOC apart.
Looking at Iraq today, one can see several powerful impediments to
the accomplishment of U.S. objectives:
* The insurgency has crippled Iraq's capacity to export more oil.
When U.S. forces first entered Baghdad in April 2003, U.S. officials
confidently spoke of boosting Iraq's prewar production of 2.5 million
barrels per day to 3 mbd in 2004 and 5-6 mbd by the end of this
decade. Today, because of persistent sabotage of pipelines and
refineries, Iraq is producing less oil than it did before the
war-about 2 mbd. In northern Iraq, insurgents have repeatedly bombed
the main export pipeline to Turkey, taking it out of operation for
months at a time; in the south, saboteurs have periodically crippled
key pipelines and loading platforms, curtailing exports by sea. The
United States has spent billions of dollars to repair these
facilities and to enhance security along the pipeline routes, all to
no avail. According to a recent report in Oil and Gas Journal ,
Iraqi output is expected to remain below prewar levels in 2005 and to
begin a slow recovery in 2006-but only if the security situation has
improved by then. And no one is willing to predict when, if ever,
the country will reach the fabled level of 6 million barrels per day.
* Ethnic and religious antagonism between Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites
threatens to dismember the INOC . When invading Iraq, the Bush
administration assumed that a U.S.-installed government under Ahmad
Chalabi would unify the country and quickly restore central
government authority. Now, the country is split into three more or
less autonomous regions: a self-governing Kurdish enclave in the
north; the beleaguered "Sunni Triangle" in the center; and the
clerical-dominated Shiite zone in the south. Rather than bridge
these divisions, the recent elections-widely touted as a victory for
democracy-have tended to strengthen the forces of dissolution. Each
community is jockeying for political and economic advantage, with
Iraq's oil reserves as the major prize. The Kurds, with one-fourth
of the seats in the new national assembly, are demanding control over
the Northern Oil Company (the INOC's northern affiliate in Kirkuk) as
the price for their participation in any future federal system; the
Shiites, for their part, seek control over the Southern Oil Company
in Basra; and many Sunnis, seeing themselves excluded from the
possible division of Iraq's oil wealth, appear inclined to support
the continuing insurgency. Under these circumstances, foreign oil
companies are reluctant to invest in any major projects in Iraq,
preferring to wait until the insurgency has been brought under
control and the future status of the INOC has been decided-steps that
may take years to accomplish.
* Insurgency and ethnic factionalism in Iraq threaten to destabilize
the entire Persian Gulf region . By invading Iraq and removing
Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration sought to bring greater
security to the Gulf area and thereby ensure the safe production of
oil. But while the removal of Hussein has eliminated one serious
threat to Gulf security, the ensuing insurgency and ethnic disorder
have introduced a whole new array of dangers. By demonstrating a
capacity to stand up to American military might and inflict
significant U.S. casualties, the insurgents have emboldened Islamic
jihadists in neighboring countries. The resurgence of violent
extremism in Saudi Arabia has been particularly striking, with a
series of major terrorist strikes in Riyadh and in the oil centers of
Khobar and Yanbu. Meanwhile, the various armed bands in Iraq appear
to be receiving financial aid from other countries, Iran in the case
of the Shiite militias and Saudi Arabia in the case of the Sunnis.
And Turkey, with a large and restive Kurdish population of its own,
has hinted at full-scale military intervention in northern Iraq if
the Kurds establish an autonomous nation in that area. Given these
developments, it is very hard to argue that the Gulf is more secure
today than it was in March 2003, before the war began.
When all is said and done, therefore, it appears that the U.S.
incursion into Iraq-begun with such high expectations two years
ago-has largely failed to achieve its intended purposes. No weapons
of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq, so the invasion cannot
be said to have eliminated a potential WMD threat. The danger posed
by terrorism is no less severe now than it was in 2003, and in some
cases has grown stronger. It is true that democracy has made some
inroads in Iraq, but it is not al all evident that elections will
produce a stable, unified state. And it is clear that Iraq is in no
position to quench America's voracious thirst for petroleum.
This assessment has obvious implications for many key aspects of U.S.
foreign policy. For one thing, it casts considerable doubt on the
utility of pre-emptive military action as a tool for promoting
stability in unsettled regions like the Middle East-a conclusion that
deserves close attention as we move closer to a possible war with
Iran. Many aspects of U.S. policy for postwar "nation building" also
need to be re-examined. But what is most evident is that the
administration's strategy of using military force to achieve its
energy objectives in the Middle East is hopelessly flawed. Despite
all the loss of human life, it appears highly unlikely that the major
Gulf producers will achieve the 85 percent increase in daily
petroleum output deemed essential to meet U.S. and international oil
requirements in 2020, and so we should expect recurring oil shortages
and price increases. Only by diminishing our day-to-day consumption
of petroleum and demilitarizing our foreign energy policy can we hope
to reduce our exposure to costly oil-supply disruptions in the Middle
East and lower the risk of further bloodshed.
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