On Oct 22, 9:34 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hiroshima,Nagasaki,Genocide in Australia and North America > > http://countercurrents.org/holt221007.htm > > It's The Oil > > By Jim Holt > > 22 October, 2007 > London Review Of Books > > Iraq is 'unwinnable', a 'quagmire', a 'fiasco': so goes the received > opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney > perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be 'stuck' > precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no > 'exit strategy'. > > Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than > five times the total in the United States. And, because of its long > isolation, it is the least explored of the world's oil-rich nations. A > mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; > in Texas alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the > Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq may have a further 220 billion > barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 > billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces > are now sitting on one quarter of the world's oil resources. The value > of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be > of the order of $30 trillion at today's prices. For purposes of > comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is > around $1 trillion. > > Who will get Iraq's oil? One of the Bush administration's 'benchmarks' > for the Iraqi government is the passage of a law to distribute oil > revenues. The draft law that the US has written for the Iraqi congress > would cede nearly all the oil to Western companies. The Iraq National > Oil Company would retain control of 17 of Iraq's 80 existing > oilfields, leaving the rest - including all yet to be discovered oil - > under foreign corporate control for 30 years. 'The foreign companies > would not have to invest their earnings in the Iraqi economy,' the > analyst Antonia Juhasz wrote in the New York Times in March, after the > draft law was leaked. 'They could even ride out Iraq's current > "instability" by signing contracts now, while the Iraqi government is > at its weakest, and then wait at least two years before even setting > foot in the country.' As negotiations over the oil law stalled in > September, the provincial government in Kurdistan simply signed a > separate deal with the Dallas-based Hunt Oil Company, headed by a > close political ally of President Bush. > > How will the US maintain hegemony over Iraqi oil? By establishing > permanent military bases in Iraq. Five self-sufficient 'super-bases' > are in various stages of completion. All are well away from the urban > areas where most casualties have occurred. There has been precious > little reporting on these bases in the American press, whose dwindling > corps of correspondents in Iraq cannot move around freely because of > the dangerous conditions. (It takes a brave reporter to leave the > Green Zone without a military escort.) In February last year, the > Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks described one such facility, the > Balad Air Base, forty miles north of Baghdad. A piece of (well- > fortified) American suburbia in the middle of the Iraqi desert, Balad > has fast-food joints, a miniature golf course, a football field, a > cinema and distinct neighbourhoods - among them, 'KBR-land', named > after the Halliburton subsidiary that has done most of the > construction work at the base. Although few of the 20,000 American > troops stationed there have ever had any contact with an Iraqi, the > runway at the base is one of the world's busiest. 'We are behind only > Heathrow right now,' an air force commander told Ricks. > > The Defense Department was initially coy about these bases. In 2003, > Donald Rumsfeld said: 'I have never, that I can recall, heard the > subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed in any meeting.' But > this summer the Bush administration began to talk openly about > stationing American troops in Iraq for years, even decades, to come. > Several visitors to the White House have told the New York Times that > the president himself has become fond of referring to the 'Korea > model'. When the House of Representatives voted to bar funding for > 'permanent bases' in Iraq, the new term of choice became 'enduring > bases', as if three or four decades wasn't effectively an eternity. > > But will the US be able to maintain an indefinite military presence in > Iraq? It will plausibly claim a rationale to stay there for as long as > civil conflict simmers, or until every groupuscule that conveniently > brands itself as 'al-Qaida' is exterminated. The civil war may > gradually lose intensity as Shias, Sunnis and Kurds withdraw into > separate enclaves, reducing the surface area for sectarian friction, > and as warlords consolidate local authority. De facto partition will > be the result. But this partition can never become de jure. (An > independent Kurdistan in the north might upset Turkey, an independent > Shia region in the east might become a satellite of Iran, and an > independent Sunni region in the west might harbour al-Qaida.) > Presiding over this Balkanised Iraq will be a weak federal government > in Baghdad, propped up and overseen by the Pentagon-scale US embassy > that has just been constructed - a green zone within the Green Zone. > As for the number of US troops permanently stationed in Iraq, the > defence secretary, Robert Gates, told Congress at the end of September > that 'in his head' he saw the long-term force as consisting of five > combat brigades, a quarter of the current number, which, with support > personnel, would mean 35,000 troops at the very minimum, probably > accompanied by an equal number of mercenary contractors. (He may have > been erring on the side of modesty, since the five super-bases can > accommodate between ten and twenty thousand troops each.) These forces > will occasionally leave their bases to tamp down civil skirmishes, at > a declining cost in casualties. As a senior Bush administration > official told the New York Times in June, the long-term bases 'are all > places we could fly in and out of without putting Americans on every > street corner'. But their main day-to-day function will be to protect > the oil infrastructure. > > This is the 'mess' that Bush-Cheney is going to hand on to the next > administration. What if that administration is a Democratic one? Will > it dismantle the bases and withdraw US forces entirely? That seems > unlikely, considering the many beneficiaries of the continued > occupation of Iraq and the exploitation of its oil resources. The > three principal Democratic candidates - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama > and John Edwards - have already hedged their bets, refusing to promise > that, if elected, they would remove American forces from Iraq before > 2013, the end of their first term. > > Among the winners: oil-services companies like Halliburton; the oil > companies themselves (the profits will be unimaginable, and even > Democrats can be bought); US voters, who will be guaranteed price > stability at the gas pump (which sometimes seems to be all they care > about); Europe and Japan, which will both benefit from Western control > of such a large part of the world's oil reserves, and whose leaders > will therefore wink at the permanent occupation; and, oddly enough, > Osama bin Laden, who will never again have to worry about US troops > profaning the holy places of Mecca and Medina, since the stability of > the House of Saud will no longer be paramount among American concerns. > Among the losers is Russia, which will no longer be able to lord its > own energy resources over Europe. Another big loser is Opec, and > especially Saudi Arabia, whose power to keep oil prices high by > enforcing production quotas will be seriously compromised. > > Then there is the case of Iran, which is more complicated. In the > short term, Iran has done quite well out of the Iraq war. Iraq's > ruling Shia coalition is now dominated by a faction friendly to > Tehran, and the US has willy-nilly armed and trained the most pro- > Iranian elements in the Iraqi military. As for Iran's nuclear > programme, neither air strikes nor negotiations seem likely to derail > it at the moment. But the Iranian regime is precarious. Unpopular > mullahs hold onto power by financing internal security services and > buying off elites with oil money, which accounts for 70 per cent of > government revenues. If the price of oil were suddenly to drop to, > say, $40 a barrel (from a current price just north of $80), the > repressive regime in Tehran would lose its steady income. And that is > an outcome the US could easily achieve by opening the Iraqi oil spigot > for as long as necessary (perhaps taking down Venezuela's oil-cocky > Hugo Chávez into the bargain). > > And think of the United States vis-à-vis China. As a consequence of > our trade deficit, around a trillion dollars' worth of US denominated > debt (including $400 billion in US Treasury bonds) is held by China. > This gives Beijing enormous leverage over Washington: by offloading > big chunks of US debt, China could bring the American economy to its > knees. China's own economy is, according to official figures, > expanding at something like 10 per cent a year. Even if the actual > figure is closer to 4 or 5 per cent, as some believe, China's > increasing heft poses a threat to US interests. (One fact: China is > acquiring new submarines five times faster than the US.) And the main > constraint on China's growth is its access to energy - which, with the > US in control of the biggest share of world oil, would largely be at > Washington's sufferance. Thus is the Chinese threat neutralised. > > Many people are still perplexed by exactly what moved Bush-Cheney to > invade and occupy Iraq. In the 27 September issue of the New York > Review of Books, Thomas Powers, one of the most astute watchers of the > intelligence world, admitted to a degree of bafflement. 'What's > particularly odd,' he wrote, 'is that there seems to be no > sophisticated, professional, insiders' version of the thinking that > drove events.' Alan Greenspan, in his just published memoir, is > clearer on the matter. 'I am saddened,' he writes, 'that it is > politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq > war is largely about oil.' > > Was the strategy of invading Iraq to take control of its oil resources > actually hammered out by Cheney's 2001 energy task force? One can't > know for sure, since the deliberations of that task force, made up > largely of oil and energy company executives, have been kept secret by > the administration on the grounds of 'executive privilege'. One can't > say for certain that oil supplied the prime motive. But the hypothesis > is quite powerful when it comes to explaining what has actually > happened in Iraq. The occupation may seem horribly botched on the face > of it, but the Bush administration's cavalier attitude towards 'nation- > building' has all but ensured that Iraq will end up as an American > protectorate for the next few decades - a necessary condition for the > extraction of its oil wealth. If the US had managed to create a > strong, democratic government in an Iraq effectively secured by its > own army and police force, and had then departed, what would have > stopped that government from taking control of its own oil, like every > other regime in the Middle East? On the assumption that the Bush- > Cheney strategy is oil-centred, the tactics - dissolving the army, de- > Baathification, a final 'surge' that has hastened internal migration - > could scarcely have been more effective. The costs - a few billion > dollars a month plus a few dozen American fatalities (a figure which > will probably diminish, and which is in any case comparable to the > number of US motorcyclists killed because of repealed helmet laws) - > are negligible compared to $30 trillion in oil wealth, assured > American geopolitical supremacy and cheap gas for voters. In terms of > realpolitik, the invasion of Iraq is not a fiasco; it is a resounding > success. > > Still, there is reason to be sceptical of the picture I have drawn: it > implies that a secret and highly ambitious plan turned out just the > way its devisers foresaw, and that almost never happens. > > Jim Holt writes for the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker.
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