[lbo-talk] War about oil?

[andie nachgeborenen]

I haven't look into this for over a decade, and
wouldn't necesasryily endorse this in treospect, but
at the time of the last Gulf war I argued that one way
to understand the US interest in Gulf oil was less
that it would give the US control over oil prices --
oil pretty much goes at the market rate, and ups and
downs of OPEC show that it's hard to coordinate that
sort of control -- than it would give the US leverage
over Europe and Japan. The idea was that they need
Gulf oil a lot more than we do, and we could exert
pressure on them for various political ends if we were
in a position to influence the terms on which they geo
their owl. The worry about the Iraqui invasion of
Kuwait, in that perspective, was that you'd have
someone who was hostile the US and fairly independent,
plus close to a number of European countries, exerting
what the US considered to disproportionate influence.

  I guess the problem with this theory as a rationale
for war today under the PCNAC approach is that the US
doesn't seem to care about trying to influence Europe
or Japan, it just gives orders and gets snotty if they
are ignored. 

I actually rather doubt that the current invasion is
"about" oil, in the sense of trying to grab Iraqi oil
and make profits from selling it, although I think
Iraq's status as a oil producer is relevant. I rather
suspect, however, that the invasion was motivated more
by strategic and geopolitical than directly economic
reasons.  The US wanted to first of all, flex its
muscles and smash a disobedient third world country in
a way that set an example to those who would dare
oppose us; Iraq was natural after all that
demonization and a decade of sanctions. Secondly, the
US wanted to establish a permanent presence of bases
in an unstable and vital reason -- not only all that
oil, but also the centrality of the region to Europe,
Africa, Asia, and so forth, as an access point. 

jks

--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> kelley at pulpculture.org wrote:
> 
> >At 03:31 PM 4/12/2004, Shane Taylor wrote:
> >>There seems to be a problem of price
> discrimination here.  Even assuming
> >>that a puppet government and privatized oil
> industry gives the US great
> >>influence over prices.
> >
> >Since I'm the one who asked about privatization,
> can I assume that 
> >your implicit answer (and Doug's) to my question
> is, "Yes, it looks 
> >like the neocons want to see Iraqi oil (and the
> rest of the region's 
> >oil) privatized."?
> 
> Sure they'd like the oil privatized, but 1) the
> Clinton admin 
> presided over mass privatizations everywhere, so I
> don't know that 
> there's a policy innovation that could explain the
> war, and 2) so 
> far, there's been no attempt to privatize Iraqi oil
> (or wasn't last 
> I'd heard).
> 
> As a qualification of 1), you could say that the
> Bush admin's roots 
> in the oil biz makes them different, but that would
> contradict the 
> Yoshie & Co. argument that Bush is little different
> from th rest of 
> the gang. Privatization of oil would benefit some
> lucky companies, 
> but again, that's a narrow sectoral argument rather
> than a big 
> capital one.
> 
> Doug
> ___________________________________
>
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