If oil were a major factor for prosecuting war in Iraq, it stands to reason the United States would be getting substantial amounts of it
The War For Oil Myth
Now that the tenth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom has arrived, the American left has taken another opportunity to revive the trope that going to war in that nation “was all about oil.” The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald is one such revivalist. In a column,http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/18/david-frum-iraq-war-oil on Monday he’s magnanimous enough to concede that saying the war in Iraq was fought strictly for oil is an “oversimplification.” Yet just as quickly, he can’t contain himself. “But the fact that oil is a major factor in every Western military action in the Middle East is so self-evident that it’s astonishing that it’s even considered debatable, let alone some fringe and edgy idea,” he contends. The war for oil mantra may be self-evident to Greenwald and his fellow travelers, but the facts say otherwise.
If oil were a major factor for prosecuting war in Iraq, it stands to reason the United States would be getting substantial amounts of it. It may come as a shock to Greenwald as well as a number of other Americans, but with regard to importing oil, the overwhelming percentage of our imported oil does not come from the Middle East. Canada and Latin America provide the United States with 34.7 percent of our imported oil.http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised Africa provides another 10.3 percent. The entire Persian Gulf, led by Saudi Arabia at 8.1 percent, provides us with a total of 12.9 percent of our imported oil.
As recently as December 2012, Iraq provided the United States with approximately 14.3 million barrels of oil out of a total of about 298 million barrels imported, or 4.8 percent of our total imports. And as this chart,http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMIZ1&f=M indicates, we were importing the highest amount of oil from Iraq before we went to war to oust Saddam Hussein.http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm
Furthermore, the United States fully supported the United Nations’ oil embargo against Iraq,http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-180046/What-UN-sanctions-Iraq.html imposed when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, despite the reality that we were far more dependent on imported oil then than we are now. We continued to support it even when it was revealed that the eventual softening of those sanctions, known as the oil for food program,http://www.economist.com/node/10853611 revealed that Russia, France and a number of other nations were collaborating with Saddam Hussein to violate sanctions in return for billions of dollars of ill-gotten gains. Of the 52 countries named in a report compiled by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker detailing the scandal, only 28 even wanted the evidence, and the United States led the way in prosecuting those implicated.
In 2010, the UN Security Council lifted most of the remaining sanctions.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12004115 The Security Council said it “recognizes that the situation now existing in Iraq is significantly different from that which existed at the time of the adoption of resolution 661″ in 1990. In other words, they recognized that Butcher of Baghdad and his brutal dictatorship had been tossed on the ash heap of history, and a relatively stable government had taken its place. The Council also voted to return control of Iraq’s oil and natural gas revenue to the government by June 30 of that year. ”Iraq is on the cusp of something remarkable–a stable, self-reliant nation,” said Vice President Joe Biden, who chaired the meeting.
It is precisely that self-reliant nation–not an oil-rich client state of America–that Iraq is becoming.
If America went to war in Iraq mostly for oil, it would stand to reason that we would maintain a stranglehold on both their supply and production. Ten years after the war began, China has emerged,http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2013/03/16/China-in-Iraq-Winning-Without-a-War.html as one of the main beneficiaries of a relatively stable Iraqi government and a country that, after two decades, is poised to become the world’s third largest oil exporter. Trade between Iraq and China has doubled almost 34 times, soaring from $517 million in 2002, to $17.5 billion by the end of last year.http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/3/iraqs-flood-of-cheap-oil-could-rock-world-markets-/?page=all If current trends continue, it will replace the U.S. as Iraq’s largest trading partner.
Furthermore, the first postwar oil license awarded by the Iraqi government in 2008 was to the state-run China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), in the form of a $3.5 billion development contract for Iraqi oil field Al-Ahdab. In December 2009, in the second round of bids to develop Iraq’s vast untapped oil reserves (following a June auction allowing foreign companies the chance to increase production at existing fields), China and Russia emerged with the lion’s share of the contracts.http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/3/iraqs-flood-of-cheap-oil-could-rock-world-markets-/?page=all At the time, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani envisioned a bright future. ”Our principal objective is to increase our oil production from 2.4 million barrels per day to more than four million in the next five years,” he said.
The country is well on its way. Last December, Iraq reached a milestone, breaking the 3 million barrel threshold for the first time since 1990, reaching 3.4 million barrels a day. Moreover, unlike Western oil reserves that require sophisticated technology or deep-sea drilling to acquire, Iraq is awash in untapped reserves that can still be reached using conventional, and far cheaper methods of extraction. As a result, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that Iraq will double its current production to 6.1 million barrels a day by 2020, and 8.3 million by 2030, surpassing Russia as the world’s second largest oil exporter, with the capability of supplying 45 percent of the increase in global demands for oil by 2035.
And once again, emphasizing the reality of where Iraqi oil will be headed, the IEA projects that most of the nation’s oil will be exported to China and other Asian markets.
So why does the war for oil meme remain so popular with the Left? The Bush Derangement Syndrome, which also includes an almost pathological hatred for former Vice President Dick Cheney, remains alive and well. So does the Left’s irrational antipathy for “Big Oil,” a term that represents the archetypical symbol of corporate greed and evil. Throw in the fact that both Bush and Cheney were oilmen, and the trifecta hate-inducing symbolism is almost too much to resist.
Yet for the sake of argument, let’s assume every accusation made by the Left regarding a war for oil is true. At the same time, let’s introduce one inarguable reality into the mix: right now, fossil fuels such as oil remain the only viable source of energy that will allow Americans to maintain their current standard of living. Maybe someday we’ll have the technology to radically alter that reality, but not now.
Let’s also introduce another unarguably reality into the mix: the American Left, and its alliance with radical environmentalism, has made it almost impossible for this nation to become energy-independent. In other words, if we did go to war for oil in Iraq, the American Left is as complicit as anyone in engendering that reality–unless there has been some mass movement on their part to completely abandon petroleum-dependent technology, such as cars, computers, or (heaven forbid) iPhones, that has remained under the national radar.
Leftists, despite all their noble intentions, still want to enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, even as they bite the hand of those who endeavor to provide it — and even as they fight tooth and nail to keep this nation at least partially the mercy of people who hate us.
As for the war in Iraq in general, people can disagree about whether removing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do. And they can certainly question the necessity of nation-building, “winning hearts and minds,” and all the other politically correct nonsense. But it is simply revisionist history to suggest that anti-oil Democratic politicians, many of whom are quoted,http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp here, weren’t every bit as concerned with the danger the Saddam Hussein regime posed as Republicans were. Authorizing the use of force was a bipartisan,http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/us/threats-responses-vote-congress-authorizes-bush-use-force-against-iraq-creating.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm effort based on a shared interpretation of the same security intelligence. To assert that Democrats were hoping for a Big Oil payday is simply absurd.
As for oil, if getting it was one of the primary reasons we liberated Iraq, subsequent developments have demonstrated that effort was a colossal failure. What we did get is something too many Americans conveniently forget: in the twelve years we’ve aggressively pursued terror, nothing remotely approaching a repeat of 9/11 has happened here.
That so many Americans have forgotten the genuine context that precipitated war in both Afghanistan and Iraq is staggering.
Now that the tenth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom has arrived, the American left has taken another opportunity to revive the trope that going to war in that nation “was all about oil.” The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald is one such revivalist. In a column,http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/18/david-frum-iraq-war-oil on Monday he’s magnanimous enough to concede that saying the war in Iraq was fought strictly for oil is an “oversimplification.” Yet just as quickly, he can’t contain himself. “But the fact that oil is a major factor in every Western military action in the Middle East is so self-evident that it’s astonishing that it’s even considered debatable, let alone some fringe and edgy idea,” he contends. The war for oil mantra may be self-evident to Greenwald and his fellow travelers, but the facts say otherwise.
If oil were a major factor for prosecuting war in Iraq, it stands to reason the United States would be getting substantial amounts of it. It may come as a shock to Greenwald as well as a number of other Americans, but with regard to importing oil, the overwhelming percentage of our imported oil does not come from the Middle East. Canada and Latin America provide the United States with 34.7 percent of our imported oil.http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised Africa provides another 10.3 percent. The entire Persian Gulf, led by Saudi Arabia at 8.1 percent, provides us with a total of 12.9 percent of our imported oil.
As recently as December 2012, Iraq provided the United States with approximately 14.3 million barrels of oil out of a total of about 298 million barrels imported, or 4.8 percent of our total imports. And as this chart,http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMIZ1&f=M indicates, we were importing the highest amount of oil from Iraq before we went to war to oust Saddam Hussein.http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm
Furthermore, the United States fully supported the United Nations’ oil embargo against Iraq,http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-180046/What-UN-sanctions-Iraq.html imposed when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, despite the reality that we were far more dependent on imported oil then than we are now. We continued to support it even when it was revealed that the eventual softening of those sanctions, known as the oil for food program,http://www.economist.com/node/10853611 revealed that Russia, France and a number of other nations were collaborating with Saddam Hussein to violate sanctions in return for billions of dollars of ill-gotten gains. Of the 52 countries named in a report compiled by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker detailing the scandal, only 28 even wanted the evidence, and the United States led the way in prosecuting those implicated.
In 2010, the UN Security Council lifted most of the remaining sanctions.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12004115 The Security Council said it “recognizes that the situation now existing in Iraq is significantly different from that which existed at the time of the adoption of resolution 661″ in 1990. In other words, they recognized that Butcher of Baghdad and his brutal dictatorship had been tossed on the ash heap of history, and a relatively stable government had taken its place. The Council also voted to return control of Iraq’s oil and natural gas revenue to the government by June 30 of that year. ”Iraq is on the cusp of something remarkable–a stable, self-reliant nation,” said Vice President Joe Biden, who chaired the meeting.
It is precisely that self-reliant nation–not an oil-rich client state of America–that Iraq is becoming.
If America went to war in Iraq mostly for oil, it would stand to reason that we would maintain a stranglehold on both their supply and production. Ten years after the war began, China has emerged,http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2013/03/16/China-in-Iraq-Winning-Without-a-War.html as one of the main beneficiaries of a relatively stable Iraqi government and a country that, after two decades, is poised to become the world’s third largest oil exporter. Trade between Iraq and China has doubled almost 34 times, soaring from $517 million in 2002, to $17.5 billion by the end of last year.http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/3/iraqs-flood-of-cheap-oil-could-rock-world-markets-/?page=all If current trends continue, it will replace the U.S. as Iraq’s largest trading partner.
Furthermore, the first postwar oil license awarded by the Iraqi government in 2008 was to the state-run China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), in the form of a $3.5 billion development contract for Iraqi oil field Al-Ahdab. In December 2009, in the second round of bids to develop Iraq’s vast untapped oil reserves (following a June auction allowing foreign companies the chance to increase production at existing fields), China and Russia emerged with the lion’s share of the contracts.http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/3/iraqs-flood-of-cheap-oil-could-rock-world-markets-/?page=all At the time, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani envisioned a bright future. ”Our principal objective is to increase our oil production from 2.4 million barrels per day to more than four million in the next five years,” he said.
The country is well on its way. Last December, Iraq reached a milestone, breaking the 3 million barrel threshold for the first time since 1990, reaching 3.4 million barrels a day. Moreover, unlike Western oil reserves that require sophisticated technology or deep-sea drilling to acquire, Iraq is awash in untapped reserves that can still be reached using conventional, and far cheaper methods of extraction. As a result, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that Iraq will double its current production to 6.1 million barrels a day by 2020, and 8.3 million by 2030, surpassing Russia as the world’s second largest oil exporter, with the capability of supplying 45 percent of the increase in global demands for oil by 2035.
And once again, emphasizing the reality of where Iraqi oil will be headed, the IEA projects that most of the nation’s oil will be exported to China and other Asian markets.
So why does the war for oil meme remain so popular with the Left? The Bush Derangement Syndrome, which also includes an almost pathological hatred for former Vice President Dick Cheney, remains alive and well. So does the Left’s irrational antipathy for “Big Oil,” a term that represents the archetypical symbol of corporate greed and evil. Throw in the fact that both Bush and Cheney were oilmen, and the trifecta hate-inducing symbolism is almost too much to resist.
Yet for the sake of argument, let’s assume every accusation made by the Left regarding a war for oil is true. At the same time, let’s introduce one inarguable reality into the mix: right now, fossil fuels such as oil remain the only viable source of energy that will allow Americans to maintain their current standard of living. Maybe someday we’ll have the technology to radically alter that reality, but not now.
Let’s also introduce another unarguably reality into the mix: the American Left, and its alliance with radical environmentalism, has made it almost impossible for this nation to become energy-independent. In other words, if we did go to war for oil in Iraq, the American Left is as complicit as anyone in engendering that reality–unless there has been some mass movement on their part to completely abandon petroleum-dependent technology, such as cars, computers, or (heaven forbid) iPhones, that has remained under the national radar.
Leftists, despite all their noble intentions, still want to enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, even as they bite the hand of those who endeavor to provide it — and even as they fight tooth and nail to keep this nation at least partially the mercy of people who hate us.
As for the war in Iraq in general, people can disagree about whether removing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do. And they can certainly question the necessity of nation-building, “winning hearts and minds,” and all the other politically correct nonsense. But it is simply revisionist history to suggest that anti-oil Democratic politicians, many of whom are quoted,http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/wmdquotes.asp here, weren’t every bit as concerned with the danger the Saddam Hussein regime posed as Republicans were. Authorizing the use of force was a bipartisan,http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/us/threats-responses-vote-congress-authorizes-bush-use-force-against-iraq-creating.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm effort based on a shared interpretation of the same security intelligence. To assert that Democrats were hoping for a Big Oil payday is simply absurd.
As for oil, if getting it was one of the primary reasons we liberated Iraq, subsequent developments have demonstrated that effort was a colossal failure. What we did get is something too many Americans conveniently forget: in the twelve years we’ve aggressively pursued terror, nothing remotely approaching a repeat of 9/11 has happened here.
That so many Americans have forgotten the genuine context that precipitated war in both Afghanistan and Iraq is staggering.
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