September 22, 2005
CAN’T DO
The failed mission to capture Iraqi oil (Michael T Klare, Asia Times, September 22nd, 2005)
It has long been an article of faith among America's senior policymakers - Democrats and Republicans alike - that military force is an effective tool for ensuring control over foreign sources of oil. Franklin D Roosevelt was the first president to embrace this view, in February 1945, when he promised King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia that the United States would establish a military protectorate over his country in return for privileged access to Saudi oil - a promise that continues to govern US policy today. Every president since Roosevelt has endorsed this basic proposition, and has contributed in one way or another to the buildup of American military power in the greater Persian Gulf region.American presidents have never hesitated to use this power when deemed necessary to protect US oil interests in the Gulf. When, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, President Bush Senior sent hundreds of thousands of US troops to Saudi Arabia in August 1990, he did so with absolute confidence that the application of American military power would eventually result in the safe delivery of ever-increasing quantities of Middle Eastern oil to the US. This presumption was clearly a critical factor in the younger Bush's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.
Now, more than two years after that invasion, the growing Iraqi quagmire has demonstrated that the application of military force can have the very opposite effect: It can diminish - rather than enhance - America's access to foreign oil.
One of the more corrosive rhetorical tools of the modern left is to argue as if life were just one big enactment of Murphy’s Law and that the values revered by most Americans, while perhaps inoffensive or even admirable in themselves, result in the opposite of what their pursuit intends. By linking sweeping and declarative propositions, none of which withstand critical analysis but which flow together with a certain poetic elan, these guys present a world where wealth creates poverty, family breeds abuse and dysfunction, progress destroys the planet, military strength translates into impotence and every accretion of American prosperity and influence sows the seeds of a tragic decline. It all plays on the innate decency of Americans and adds up to an effort to undermine the pragmatic optimism and moral simplicity that undergirds their spirit, a spirit that can indeed lead to naive folly, but which is the source of a success and strength that seems to grow steadily, to the consternation of sages from more philosophical and nuanced lands.
Note how the good professor shows none of the traditional leftist disdain for the idea that oil security is a major foreign policy goal. His argument seems to be that “the younger Bush” is such an ignorant booby he doesn’t know how to attain it. Obviously if he had asked Professor Klare, he would have just lifted the sanctions.
Of course we knew that war would disrupt, not enhance, our access to oil. But war would also give us what we wanted: democracy in Iraq. Let the good professor explain how we could have got democracy through sanctions.
Posted by: pj at September 22, 2005 7:22 AMReading through the article the author is clearly in the "no blood for oil" camp. He twists the usual argument around by saying we didn't get the oil so it wasn't worth it. Of course the article is full of biased conclusions ("democracy will never take hold in Iraq", Iraq is clearly an endless quagmire, etc) so it is hard to be taken seriously. And as OJ notes no mention of spreading democracy, making the Middle East better, etc.
Posted by: AWW at September 22, 2005 8:47 AMProf. Klare is only about a step up from those who think Bush used his secret hurricane machine to damage the ports and refineries around New Orleans so his oil buddies could raise prices and Halliburton could them reap lucrative rebuilding contracts. But with Rita coming ashore near the Port of Houston, he's got another week or two to come up with that angle for his next op-ed piece.
AWW - Of course Bush is a fascist who wants to send all dissenters to Auschwitz; the fact that no one's gone only shows he's incompetent too.
Posted by: pj at September 22, 2005 1:11 PMI'm in the "no blood for oil" camp but fully support the WOT and the battle for Iraq for all the reasons Bush declared, especially the stabilization of the Mideast and the constructive chaos that has encouraged those seeking consensual government.
This article is just another albatross to hang around Bushes neck and nothing to do with blood for oil.
You see, in the long run Bush's efforts fit right in with the "no blood for oil" camp except for the lack of a major program to reduce our petro-dependecy which is the real reason we've been screwing around with the Mideast since WW2 and will continue to until we learn how to reduce our imports. Chavez is the newest totalitarian to learn how to squeeze our jewels.
Posted by: Genecis at September 22, 2005 2:29 PMExcellent analysis of Leftist "analytical" methodology, peter.
Klare forgets another point: the US is now dependent on mostly Venezuelan oil, which is a heavy crude that US refineries can handle. Total-Fina-ELF has to have the Saudi/Iranian/Iraqui sweet oil because that's all THEIR refineries can handle. Genecis is right, but without mentioning how this argues AGAINST the "Bush is in Iraq for the Oooooil" meme.
Extraction cost of Alberta Tar Sand Oil is $12/barrel: time to "suggest" that Alberta be the 51st state.
Posted by: Ptah at September 22, 2005 5:29 PMPeter:
I'm afraid your link to the article on Murphy's Law incorrectly describes the phenonenon. The exact definition is anything that can go wrong, will go wrong specifically to me.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at September 22, 2005 7:36 PMExcellent idea. Annex the Yukon Territory, British Columbia and Alberta, combine them into the state of Columbia and we have 50 contiguous states.
Let Hawaii and Canada go their own ways and wish them Godspeed.
Posted by: erp at September 23, 2005 4:23 PMPtah/erp
With friends like you... You guys are quite the wacky imperialists! Annex your friends and cut the guys you don't like loose. Hey, how about I start spreading a pro-American gospel around Ontario and, if I succeed, you can threaten to annex us too?
Somebody should warn the Aussies.
Posted by: Peter B at September 24, 2005 5:04 AM