April 2003 Edition
Oil Hegemony, Re-colonizing Iraq, and Why Oil-Consuming Nations Must Diversify
In an article 'Carving Up The New Iraq' in the Sunday Herald, Neil Mackay describes Iraq as lying in ruins - its cities bombed; its buildings torched by teenage arsonists; its shops, hospitals, factories and homes looted. Commenting on the US "reconstruction" plan for Iraq" which is to be led by retired Lt Gen Jay Garner, (who will be answering directly to US military commander General Tommy Franks) - he notes: "In a special Sunday Herald investigation, we have charted the network of financial kickbacks, political pay-backs, cronyism, self-interest and ferocious ideology that underpins the entire reconstruction scheme".
Suggesting that the US military occupation could last five years, he asserts that America will be entrenched in Iraq for decades to come, concluding: "The colonisation process has begun already".
Nick Beans's commentary 'Oil, Dollars, Euros and Dead Iraqis' on the Information Clearing House website cites a New York Times report that quoted a “senior American official” (believed to be Secretary of State James Baker) saying: “We are talking about oil. Got it? Oil, vital American interests.”
Also cited is American academic Michael T. Klare (author of the book Resource Wars) who in a recent article [See Foreign Policy in Focus at http://www.fpif.org], noted that one of the key objectives of the present US administration flows from the analysis made by Dick Cheney in 1990: “Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a ‘stranglehold’ not only on our economy but also ‘on that of most of that of the other nations of the world as well."
Klare emphasises that control over Persian Gulf oil is also “consistent with the administration’s declared goal of attaining permanent military superiority over all other nations” and the need, set out in the administration’s statements on national security policy, to “prevent any rival from ever reaching the point where it could compete with the United States on something resembling equal standing.”
In a commentary 'Why War with Iraq? Follow the Money', Economics Professor Richard Ebeling points to how (taking the cue from Iraq) some oil-producing nations had begun to require payments in Euros rather than in dollars and this had a bearing on the ability of the American government to manage the enormous US debt, and preserve its global empire:
"If the euro were to increasingly become the alternative international currency of choice in competition with the dollar, the global demand for greenbacks would fall, the value of the dollar would decline, and the U.S. government would find it far more difficult both to export inflation and to finance its budget deficits. The financial clout and muscle of the American government would be dramatically undermined over time with the dollar increasingly no longer the only global reserve currency in town."
In a Worldwatch Institute paper: Blood and Oil - Alternatives to War in Iraq, Michael Renner summarizes the US war drive as follows:
"In a broader sense, it aims to reinforce the world economy’s reliance on oil—and on an energy system whose guarantor is the United States, by dint not only of its close relationships with key oil exporters but also its control of the sea lanes through which much of the world’s oil is shipped".
Noting that such a policy "undermines efforts to develop renewable energy sources, boost energy efficiency, and control greenhouse gas emissions - at a time when wind power is becoming increasingly competitive with traditional sources of energy", he adds:
"The Bush administration, well-known for the oil industry
affiliations of its top officials, has made no secret of its visceral dislike
of alternative energy sources. The same administration that decided to slash
already paltry spending for energy efficiency and renewables R&D to less
than $1 billion per year has no problem with preparing for a war that could
cost as much as $200 billion".
Many environmental and public service organizations have pointed out how
the billions of dollars spent on war (variously estimated at between 90-250
billion US$ a year) could have instead been spent on many other worthwhile
causes. Quoting ITDG, "Sustainable Energy
for Poverty Reduction", A GreenPeace commentary: 'It's
about oil' points out how the money spent on the war could have
been spent very differently:
"US$90 billion could provide clean renewable energy to the 1.6 billion people, a quarter of the world's population, who have no access to electricity. As well as helping to bring about sustainable development, it would prevent the deaths of the two and half million women and children who die each year from the indoor pollution caused by cooking fires"
The same article notes that 200 billion US $ could provide 100 million households in America a solar system, or replace 10 million vehicles with poor fuel efficiency (less than 20 mpg) with hybrid cars that offered 40 mpg, or the funding for more than 330,000 wind turbines. (As calculated by the Danish Wind Industry Association).
In fact several important developments in the arena of alternative energy and energy management suggest that the world can easily begin a fairly rapid transition away from its current dependency on oil to other more sustainable and more diversified energy resources. In some cases, this may even lead to lower energy consumption and the use of cheaper energy resources.
For decades, all manner of vested interests have stonewalled the transition towards efficient mass transit systems and resisted other approaches to energy conservation and efficient usage. Energy and Environmental Regulatory bodies have acted in ways that continue to protect the oil monopolies, and discourage a faster transition to viable alternatives. But what the war against Iraq shows is that there are millions of people throughout the world who are not only against such wars of occupation and colonization - many of those who protested the war are equally eager to encourage and support moves away from an oil-dominated world economy.
Even as governments and private corporations resist new technologies, anti-war groups and environmental groups must unite in forcing change. This is particularly important in developing countries whose progress has been stymied due to the high price of oil-imports. Moreover, there is considerable potential for cooperation between poorer oil-importing nations such as India (where a certain degree of progress has been made in the arena of alternative energy) with other more industrialized nations such as Korea, Japan, Germany, France and Italy - all of whom are major oil importers.
It is surely no coincidence that many of the nations where opposition to the Iraq war was strongest - (such as Austria, Belgium, Greece, Spain, Italy, Germany and France in Europe, or Pakistan, India and Bangladesh in the subcontinent) are all major oil importers. If such nations could cooperate in the arena of energy efficiency and diversification, they could all reap the benefits, and perhaps jointly prevent future wars for the control of the world's oil supplies. Even oil-exporting nations such as Iran have some interest in looking at energy alternatives since many of them will not remain major oil exporters for more than a few decades.
Another way to counter the US/British war drive is to ensure that independent companies involved in the refining and retailing of energy products not be privatized so as to prevent the world's existing mega-players from expanding their already powerful stranglehold on the world's energy resources. Resisting the pressure to privatize and simultaneously accelerating moves towards energy alternatives could play a valuable role in combating the relentless drive towards war that emanates from the oil-hawks in Washington.
In the context of the subcontinent, it would especially behoove anti-war forces in Pakistan and Bangladesh not to see the war against Iraq exclusively from the prism of Islam, but to also recognize the economic and political motivations that drive Anglo-US imperialism. If Pakistan and Bangladesh could ratchet down the anti-Indian rhetoric of their Islamists, and instead actively encourage cooperation in the energy sector with India (in collaboration with Iran, Afghanistan and the energy-rich Central Asian Republics) - it could go a long way in reducing the ill-effects of US/British machinations in the entire region.
It could also give a fillip to the worldwide anti-war movement that needs to remain on guard not only to prevent further wars against nations such as Syria or Iran, but to also ensure that the occupation of Iraq is ended - that Iraq's sovereignty is fully restored, and that US and Britain pay reparations for the enormous damage and destruction that they have wrought on the people of Iraq.
(If you liked our site, or would like to help with the South Asian Voice project and help us expand our reach, please click here)