It’s always been about the oil

Friday, June 20th, 2008

It’s taken the US Republicans long enough to get to the point of the entire Iraq War and subsequent illegal invasion and occupation, which was, of course, to secure the oil supplies by taking out Saddam Hussein. The undeniably despotic Hussein had threatened to switch to selling the limited amounts of oil he was allowed to trade in euros instead of US dollars. Had the rest of the Middle East followed his planned-for example, the US would by now be long embedded in the greatest economic depression in history. That is, if it hadn’t already blown itself up and become a post-nuclear anarchic hell-hole through widespread destitution exploding its many fault lines, including race and religion.

But thankfully for the Bush and his businessmen colleagues in the Senate, the invasion brought its first-stage pay-off when at last Saddam was executed and proud Americans could tune in to watch via YouTube. The Americans and their lackeys then had to go through the tiresome motions of pretending to promote democracy among a people they never actually gave a toss about. Big business, however, could afford to wait, safe in the knowledge that eventually it would get the oil, simply because Iraq has only one group of countries, headed by the US, to deal with. Iraq wouldn’t dare look anywhere else.

And in the post-invasion world, there isn’t anywhere else anyway. Setting aside the countless deaths of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians—which are of little consequence to Republicans itching to use violence whenever possible to show who’s boss of this blue-green sphere—the Iraq War was destined to be a success on their terms, best described as having been forged in the fires of Hell. To those of us wanting to see peace promoted in the world, and alternative fuels found to save us from ourselves, this much-lauded success, whether cloaked as a triumph for democracy or not, remains something that in the long-term will be recognised as an extinction-level failure caused by the ascendancy to world domination by a bunch of fat, rich, techno-medievalist thugs.

The US vice-president, Dick Cheney—now one of the most hated politicians in America, by ordinary Americans—visited Iraq in March and now the country’s government (to all intents and purposes, a puppet administration given a thin gloss of authenticity through clever use of the ballot box) is preparing to allow four of the biggest western oil companies– BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Total—to renew exploitation of the country’s vast reserves for the first time in almost four decades.

Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani says the deals do not amount to privatisation of the country’s oil. But the four companies are heirs to the consortium given the concession to control Iraq’s oil by King Faisal, the foreign Sunni Arab who the British (yes, we have our disproportionately large share of the blame, or rather, our politicians do) imposed on Iraq’s majority Shia population after occupying the country during the first world war. They lost the right to explore new fields in 1961 after the monarchy was overthrown, and nationalisation followed under the Ba’ath party. There was no competitive bidding for the concessions, awarded to the four giants, Chevron and some smaller companies.

After the 2003 US-led invasion, these companies supplied advisers and trainers to the Iraqi oil ministry for free. There’s no such thing as free in a capitalist system, of course. It was a patient and vampiric move, the first touch of the pointed teeth to the oil-rich jugular vein. The Russian company Lukoil did the same, freebies for future leverage, but it lost the contract for Iraq’s largest undeveloped field to Total and Chevron. Chinese and Indian firms also lost out. We can only wonder as to why this was so, and perhaps speculate that while the US administration remains publicly sceptical about global warming and peak oil, it is likely to have long believed the consensus in private, and as a consequence it planned to secure the last remaining significant oil reserves for the mostly exclusive use of America and, maybe, its closest allies such as Great Britain.

The game plan could be that, come the time the rest of the world is back to using tallow fat candles, Americans will still be driving round in fast cars in brightly-lit cities. Of course things won’t work out so well for the US, primarily because Americans live on the same planet as the rest of us and will have their share of horror to deal with in the coming storm. But it’s nice that the Republicans have their little dream of total supremacy in a super-heated world to hold onto for a little while longer. They might even be able to express pride at the possibility of being the last humans standing.

Laws on how to develop Iraq’s oil and share the profits between its regions stalled in its parliament last autumn. In an attempt to calm nationalist fears, the contracts are being presented as limited to ‘technical support’ for two years, though of course that support is likely to be hands-on and indistinguishable from actually having complete control, because it will be complete control. The companies will sell expertise and equipment—no doubt on preferential terms tied to long-term rewards—rather than providing capital and management control. Smoke and mirrors are, as ever, in plentiful supply.

The intention for the time being is to increase production by 100,000 barrels a day.