The end of US hegemony
December 6th, 2009 § 15 Comments
Dick Cheney did not go to war with Iraq for oil. Dick Cheney spent all of the ’90s complaining about the ‘sanctions happy’ policy of the United States. If it was only the oil he was interested in, he could have got it without having to go to war; the Iraqis were offering monopoly control. Dick Cheney went to war to assert US power, for the ‘demonstration effect’, and the idea originated with the neoconservatives. Other than that Lawrence Wilkerson offers useful analysis.
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The US has the power to decimate any nation that acts against its interests.
The Muslims cheering about demise of the US power is not only premature but childish.
You Pakistanis need to remember that the US have invested way too much in Pakistan over several decades, and because of this reason, the end of US hegemony will only happen on a Pakistan, bombed back to the stone age…… !
When will we get past having to preface every anti-war article or speech with disinformation about the wars being “for oil” in order for the articles to get past the Israel-first liberal gatekeepers?
And what a disturbing comment precedes mine!
My own personal theory about the first American invasion of Iraq is as follows: In order to become president, Reagan’s VP and former head of the CIA, George Bush, Sr. campaigned against Michael Dukakis. Dukakis never mentioned the his CIA past, but did call the elder Bush “a wimp”.
I believe that Operation Dessert Storm was mounted in order to prove to the world that Bush the Elder wasn’t a wimp.
No way to prove the above.
The politics of oil need to distinguished from the economics.
Pitting the theory that the Iraq invasion was primarily for oil against the idea that it was all about Israel’s geostrategic agenda is couching the debate in pretty narrow terms.
Firstly Big Oil and the MIC are both instruments of the Anglo-US financial oligarchy.Oil profits are less important than demonstrable control of all three streams involved in its production.
Many commentators now argue that the US priority was to use the occupation to suppress Iraqi oil production.The installation of their Shia proxies therefore worked in the same way as the installation of Khomeini in 1979 in Iran.
The occupation,as Deanna Spingola argues here-
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Power_Elite_7.html
has boosted US oil profits massively,precisely by stalling Iraqi production.The control of the initial upstream stage of production in Iraq,and Alaska where huge fields allegedly remain untapped,has delivered all the 5 US oil majors could have wished for.
Control of oil in Iraq has allowed the US to block Chinese access to their oil production concessions there up until now.
Freeborn there are numerous major flaws in the theories that you cite:
1) China receives Alaskan oil. US based corporations Haliburton and GE have also recently built pipelines and and pumping stations to transport Central Asia energy directly to China. Australia recently signed a historic agreement to supply China with the largest ever contract for LNG. Exxon will participate. Nobody is blocking China’s access to anything. Indeed China has energy trade relations with most nations on Earth.
2) There is no such thing as “energy control” outside of the commodities futures traders. Oil and even gas are traded while in transit. Outside of naval embargo there is no method of “control”. Occupation of production fields does not further “control” at all.
3) The “suppression of Iraqi production” has been the main cause of the spike in oil prices over the past years and is a major contributor to the current financial problems of the US. The major beneficiaries being Russia, Venezuela, and Iran. Big oil earns income primarily from steady spreads on refining, margins on retail distribution, and shipping fees, all of these areas of business failed to benefit significantly from the temporary spike in the price per barrel. The only means they had to take advantage of the high prices was from their domestic production which unlike everywhere else is not nationalized.
A good read on the topic can be found below:
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/are-they-really-oil-wars/
Aletho
It’s a breath of fresh air to have someone who obviously knows what he’s talking about.
Respect!
However you appear to have discounted the likelihood that the oil motive and Israeli interests were the TWIN priorities for the US invasion.In fact they were one and the same priority.
How about the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was, immediately after the invasion,being touted in Washington and Tel Aviv as a source of free Iraqi oil for Israel.
The pipeline is evidently in need of renovation at the Haifa end as the pipe could soon burst Israeli media reported August 2008.
Some argue that Operation Iraqi Freedom was an extension of an Israeli invasion plan called,Shekhinah.See the Joe Vialls piece at bottom of this link with an abundance of evidence to substantiate the oil for Israel theory-
http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html
On China-the US has taken the last six years to allow Chinese companies to bid for contracts in Iraq.Not a minor inconvenience!With its ever growing hunger for new sources it has employed “a string of pearls” naval strategy to help diversify its sources of supply.None of this has been cheap and the deals signed with Saddam would have brought the required oil on stream long before now.
If further evidence were needed that Iraq’s oil industry has been deliberately laid bare for Western nations to exploit long-term read this piece on the Oil and Gas laws drafted by US “advisers”:
http://www.tni.org/archives/mahdi_oillaw
How about the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was, immediately after the invasion,being touted in Washington and Tel Aviv as a source of free Iraqi oil for Israel.”
As far as I am aware that hoopla is sourced from just one editorial opinion expressed in one Israeli newspaper (not much of a basis for a theory). An objective and critical analysis would quickly reach the conclusion that such a renovation would never occur unless Eretz Israel were to cross Jordan and or Syria.
I don’t follow Joe Vials.
Perhaps China could have achieved more penetrastion of Iraq without US sanctions or invasion but I doubt it. Iraq’s economy is less protected from Chinese imports and Iraqi oil facilities are less independent. China, Turkey and Iran seem to be the beneficiaries. I don’t claim that this is by design.
As to “oil laws”, this is not so much proof of a motive for invasion but just what you might expect given the situation. If it had been the motive for invasion the occupier would not have entrusted its passage to Iraqis and it would have actually been implemented.
The long and the short of it is that the oil numbers just don’t work out as an explanation for the ongoing occupation. It’s obviously not been beneficial to the US economy and any brief gains that Big Oil may have realized from the reduced supply entering the market were purely incidental.
The story about the excitement generated by the US conquest of Iraq and the potential of the Haifa pipeline for bringing in Iraqi crude was reported in Haaretz in August 2003.Jewish-run US media sources like J Weekly also ran the story.
“Yes,the war was for oil….Israeli oil!” was how one blogger interpreted the story five years later.She also referred to the “Theft of Iraqi Oil Law” then on the point of being passed at the behest of the US occupiers.
Now that reference brings us right back to the Mahdi link re-the Oil and Gas laws.Mahdi makes amply clear in this piece that the idea that Big Oil thrives best in stable security conditions i.e.doesn’t need wars and occupations-is a fallacy.
The majors will get terms they dictate to the weak regional administrations imposed across the conquered territory by the US drafters of the Iraqi constitution precisely because the privatization they have imposed with minimal public participation and the now prevailing endemic ethnic and regional instability facilitate their domination.
The oil majors have been patient enough to wait until the constitution-drafting process has been completed but their long-term goal is to feed on the prostrate carcass of a now privatized Iraqi national asset-her oil industry.The majors and Israel want crude primarily and have little or no interest in developing downstream elements of the industry.
Mahdi’s account of the drafting of Iraqi oil and gas laws tell us what the conquest and occupation of Iraq is all about.
Domination by resource-hungry international elites who have been singularly successful in weaponizing the very cultures in which they operate.
If they can pull it off over centuries domestically they can do it to the prostrate victims of their military conquests and take their time about it,too.
No cock-up about it!
The idea you are peddling that the vulturecrats have miscalculated and that US majors’ profits have been incidental and short-lived does not stand up to scrutiny.Moreover it is based on the sort of cock-up theory of how elites operate that bears no resemblance to the operational practice based on long-term thinking and patient planning which they exercise in their quest for dominance.
These elites dominate the societies in which they operate because they are adept in weaponizing the cultures on which their domination feeds.If you read Mahdi’s account of how a prostrate
Freeborn,
I take issue with their analysis. It runs counter to everything I know about the oil industry and its evolution over the past 40 years.
Big oil has left the risky aspects of exploration and development to the Juniors and to service companies.
Neo-colonial administration works just fine for Big Oil.
Big oil is all about downstream activities.
Any scrutiny given to the performance of oil stock values in the aftermath of the price collapse indeed does support my contention that the gains from the reduction to global supplies were short lived. Whereas Big Oil’s position in the M.E. is irreparably harmed by the sanctions and wars for Israel. Just compare the penetration of Russian and Chinese firms across the M.E. over the last decade to the reduced business garnered by Western firms.
This account you cite seems to be entirely worthless.
It certainly doesn’t suit your argument but just who will enjoy the occupation oil spoils has never been in doubt.
The planners in the Foundations (Ford,Bilderberger,CFR et al) have since the early 20th century envisaged war as being simultaneously both an instrument of US foreign policy as well as a means to effect the type of domestic social transformation that advances their long-term goal of elite domination.
The players in such elite think-tanks invest in Big Oil stock.Insiders at Bilderberger 2002 reported that the the Group were keen that the Iraq invasion,then touted for that Autumn,should not actually go ahead until the following Spring.
So it transpired.That first year of the occupation saw Bilderbergers anticipating oil prices in the range $55-$80 for 2004-2005.The following year in 2004 the price per barrel anticipated at Bilderberger was $55-$105.By 2004 the price for 2005-2006 the attendees predicted would be in the $55-$105 range.
Unless you are pretty close to those who control the flow you would not be privy to this kind of information.
The Israel versus Big Oil motives for the Iraq invasion are not mutually exclusive.The two are interlocking beneficiaries of the subsequent long-term occupation.
They planned it that way.
Big Oil was involved in the planning.They did not, as you would have us believe,suddenly decide about 40 years ago that war was no longer the best way to get their hands on other people’s oil.
I think you will be hard pushed to be a little more specific about exactly when the Rockefellers of this world suddenly had this Damascene conversion to abjure from using war as a means to advance their market domination.
Another piece of evidence worthless because it doesn’t support your account of Big Oil’s altruistic streak is this:
http://questionsquestions.net/feldman/ff_divest.html
Freeborn you are overlooking the fact that Iraq’s government is run off of the vast majority of the oil income generated there. This will always be so because without a functional state there simply would be no oil income. The bit left for profits on oil services and other contracts that foreign firms obtain amount to the equivalent of a few months of the expense of maintaining an occupation. As I stated earlier the numbers are orders of magnitude off for your theory to make sense.
You assert that “Big Oil was involved in the planning”
My response is that you need to come up with some evidence. Otherwise you are just bloviating.
“I think you will be hard pushed to be a little more specific about exactly when the Rockefellers of this world suddenly had this Damascene conversion to abjure from using war as a means to advance their market domination.”
Not pressed at all. It’s called post WWII neo-colonialism. Capital produces a greater return for its owners if they are not constantly engaged in military struggles.
There is an abundance of evidence to support the idea that Big Oil was involved in the Iraq war-planning.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1444
Presumably even more mainstream sources like the Washington Post were “bloviating” when they managed to get their hands on memos re-Cheney’s Energy Task Force meeings with oil execs. well in advance of the attack.The meetings defined national security as US access to oil.
Greg Palast’s exposee of how Big Oil had,in 2005, reacted against Heritage Foundation plans for wholesale privatization was covered by BBC Newsnight,Harpers and DN.At that time,in 2005,Big Oil was profiting from the high oil price and rejected Heritage plans to break the back of OPEC cartel.
Wolfowitz and Bolton got their marching orders to the World Bank and UN respectively precisely because under the occupation Big Oil-not the neo-cons-was going to be in control of Iraqi oil.Big Oil had no interest in a sell-off that would topple OPEC and lead to massive oil price-cuts.
9/11 had given the neo-cons a brief illusory advantage but once the occupation got underway Big Oil was calling the shots.The State Department and Big Oil saw Negroponte as the old hand they needed to manage the type of counter-insurgency struggle/civil war they envisaged would be more conducive to the achievement of their long-term goals.
Those long-term goals are now about to come to fruition with the second bidding round for contracts set to take place in Baghdad this week-end.The fact that the foreign majors are now in position and back in Iraq is testament to how they still believe they may be in a position to profit from the managed occupation/counter-insurgency war conditions that prevail.
Even after the massive attack on the Iraqi capital this week and the ambivalence and risk that still relates to prospective contracts absent passing of an oil law the majors are ready to feast on the spoils of war.
It was ever thus.
“Presumably even more mainstream sources like the Washington Post were “bloviating” when they managed to get their hands on memos re-Cheney’s Energy Task Force meeings with oil execs. well in advance of the attack.”
You are now just lying Freeborn. The only content implicating oil as a motive from that SECRET meeting that anyone got hold of was a map showing oil production areas across the region. The context of the map’s inclusion is entirely unknown.
Palast is a hardcore Chicago Zionist propagandist.
Frankly Freeborn, I don’t have the time or inclination to dialog with liars.
aletho
Maybe it was getting late and you were the worse for wear but I can’t help thinking that you just tried to convince us that when Cheney’s Energy Task Force had SECRET meetings with high level oil execs. no ulterior motive-the seizure of Iraqi oil to wit-entered their minds.
Could we finally be reaching endgame here? I mean with the rather adolescent recourse to insult when your argument hangs by a thread it’s finally beginning to look like curtains isn’t it?
You’re now clinging to the incredibly naive idea that we’ll share your belief in Cheney and Big Oil’s good intentions towards Iraq! If that was all that was left of my argument I’d probably call it a day too.
You’re now reduced to hiding behind the claim to executive privilege Cheney himself made in 2004 which the Supreme Court rejected saying the Bush administration did not have the right to keep the workings of its Energy Task Force secret.
Now as you obviously can’t be arsed to read any of the links I’ve used to support my contention that your Big Oil absolution/acted in good faith argument is way off track let’s revisit the conclusion Thomas Eley wrote to his December 2005 essay:Did Big Oil Participate in Planning the Invasion of Iraq?
Having traced the trail of obfuscation and subtefuge
laid by Cheney and the five oil majors execs.(Exxon Mobil,Chevron,ConocoPhillips,BP and Shell) before Senate and Congressional committees,Eley argued that it was highly unlikely that the Task Force focussed solely on dismantling corporate regulations and restrictions on oil exploration in the US.
Were the Task Force minutes to emerge,Eley hazarded, they would show that the invasion and colonisation of Iraq and its oil were the main agenda of those SECRET meetings.
Politicians and corporate executives who go out of their way to conceal their agenda usually forfeit their right to secrecy and the public’s trust.
The trust you are still willing to expend on Bush,Cheney and Chevron et al in maintaining the absurd dogma of Big Oil’s non-participation in planning the Iraq war would be quite risible were it not for the grim reality of its consequences for the people of Iraq for which most of us hold the planners’ greed and hubris responsible.