Energy independence or emergence of U.S. oil imperialism?
It’s become crystal clear that controlling oil access is the cornerstone of U.S. Middle East policy. But now, given the tough situation Washington is facing in the region in response to its continuous attempts to transform the region, planning regime changes in many states, laying hands on the Middle East and the Arab world oil wealth proved difficult than the Bush administration and previous U.S. governments have predicted.
Seeking a “democratic” or in other words “puppet” government in Iraq was the U.S. goal to lay hands on the country’s oil resources, up until it ousted the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
But this was only part of a larger plan that includes usurping the entire Middle East’s riches.
The path the American President adopted in achieving this goal is “engendering the kind of resistance that is actually undermining America’s aims,” stated a recent article on Intervention Magazine.
And the result is that the U.S. now is sacrificing enormous sums of blood and treasure, while making itself more vulnerable in the process.
Many political experts and recent polls confirmed that the majority of the American public disagrees with Bush’s insistence to “stay the course” in Iraq.
That’s probably because everybody now knows that the reasons Mr. Bush presented as justification to invade Iraq were fake.
Iraq had been the core of the Neoconservative’s plans to insure America’s economic predominance for long decades.
By deciding to invade Iraq in March 2003, the U.S. President hoped to preserve the U.S. hegemony over Iraq’s oil which would keep oil prices in the $15 - $20 a barrel rangem, and that by ensuring low oil prices he would break the back of the OPEC oil cartel.
He also hoped that low oil prices would keep troubled U.S. auto manufacturers like Ford and GM alive, and that leading American oil firms, like Exxon and Mobil would regain lost ground, after they saw their share of the world’s oil reserves they control dwindle in comparison to foreign competitors. Bush also hoped that the U.S. influence in the oil-rich country, Iraq, would give it great leverage over competitors such as China and Europe, and that the U.S. control over Iraq’s oil would insure oil continuing to be priced in dollars and not Euros, the article further stated.
The U.S. attempted, by invading Iraq, to make sure American consumers could continue “to afford gas guzzling trucks and SUVs churned out by Ford and GM”; the article said, and thus make sure U.S. oil giants like Exxon/Mobil profit from China’s petroleum fueled economic expansion; and that the U.S. dollar stays the world’s reserve currency, not to mention the enormous advantages U.S. financial firms would gain.
U.S.’s automakers, oil industry, and financial firms stand for “the axis-of-influence” that makes up the American government’s political base. But this axis-of-influence is tied to an axis-of-ills, which includes high oil prices and declining supplies which threaten the long-term prospects of the U.S. automakers and oil firms.
Replacing the U.S. dollar with another currency would deal a major blow to the U.S.’s financial sector.
Debt links the U.S.’s aging petroleum-industrial complex with the financial sector. And it is a well known fact that the America’s auto manufacturers are crippled with debt. The huge amount of debt accumulated by the American consumers and the U.S. government could be one of the key reasons that will lead to the collapse of the dollar’s primacy.
Launching Iraq war in March 2003 with the aim of protecting U.S. hegemony over Iraq’s oil intended to alleviate the ills the U.S.’s sclerotic petroleum-related infrastructure is suffering as well as the financial sector.
By invading Iraq, the U.S. President's Middle Eastern maneuver has actually worsened those ills instead of addressing them.
But the U.S. military presence in Iraq has inadvertently strengthened its chief adversary in the region; Iran.
The U.S. decision to invade Iraq, although it had no proof that the country's toppled leader did possess Weapons of Mass Destruction, provoked Iran hasten its nuclear developments to avoid facing a similar fate.
Iran recognized the lessons of Iraq. Iran knew that carrying the nuclear card is the most effective way to stop the U.S. President from even thinking of using force against it one day.
With the current heated situation in the Middle East, one power, either Iran or the United States, can dominate the Persian Gulf and the region’s oil wealth.
Iran had in the past also warned that Gulf Arab oil would be endangered by any U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities.
First such threat was made in 2005 when a leading Iranian official raised the prospect of Iranian retaliation against Middle East oil exports.
Iranian Expediency Council secretary Mohsen Rezai was once quoted as saying that such Persian Gulf oil states as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia could be threatened.
"An attack on Iran will be tantamount to endangering Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and "in a word" the entire Middle East oil," Rezai said.
And by invading Iraq, the U.S. has not only increased the chances of a confrontation with the Islamic Republic.
America now has at least fourteen military bases in Iraq to boost its ability to carry out military strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites from Iraq. But those bases had as well exposed the American forces to a possible Iranian retaliation.
As explained many military experts, it’s almost impossible for any country to bomb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites, given the fact that Iran’s nuclear facilities are dispersed all over the country.
And recent news reports indicated that the U.S. government might consider using nuclear weapons to knock down Iran’s nuclear program.
But invading Iran, a country that is more populous and more powerful than Iraq carries new threats to the U.S.
The mess the U.S. created in the Middle East is slowly but surely strangling its vitality. America's involvement in the region is linked to the woes facing its aging petroleum-industrial complex. “As a result, Iran has America over the proverbial barrel,” the article further stated.
It’s noteworthy that 40 percent of the world's crude oil shipments passes through the two-mile wide channel of the strategic Straits of Hormuz, where massive Iranian forces are deployed serving as a protection barrier.
If attacked, Iran could easily block the Straits of Hormuz and use its missiles to strike tankers and GCC oil facilities. In a few weeks, the entire world would be starving for oil and Iran would then be the world’s no. 1 oil exporters.
