The Coming War with Iran: It's About the Oil, Stupid

World civilization is based on oil. The world is running out of economically accessible oil. The oil companies and governments are not telling the truth about how close we are to the end. Dick Cheney knew about peak oil back in 1999 when he spoke to the London Petroleum Institute as Halliburton CEO. He predicted it would come in 2010. After that it's just a matter of years before it runs out. Whoever controls the remaining, accessible oil determines who lives and who dies.

Sixty percent of this oil lies in fields within a triangular area of the Middle East the size of Kansas. In that speech Cheney said: "The Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

This small Middle East triangle encompasses the oil fields of northeast of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the southwestern part of Iran, along with Kuwait, Qatar and the Emirates. The US controls Iraq. It has friendly governments in the other states.

Iran is the exception. The US now surrounds Iran.

Controlling an area the size of Kansas shouldn't be a problem for the U.S. military, except that it is heavily populated and many people in the triangle don't want the Americans there and are willing to fight.

It's been known for at least thirty years that America needs alternative energy sources. But instead of an alternative energy plan we got the invasion of Iraq by oilmen wedded to a dying business, willing to kill hundreds of thousands to cling to the last drop. The US is never leaving the region or withdrawing from Iraq. McCain is right about staying, but 100 years is too long. The oil won't last that long.

Iran is next. Lieberman set up Petraeus to testify last week that Iranian-backed groups are murdering hundreds of American servicemen in Iraq. On Friday Gates called Iran's influence in Iraq "malign" and Bush said if Iran keeps meddling in Iraq "then we'll deal with them." They are building their case for war with resolutions in the Senate and at the UN. It's only western Iran, from the Iraq border to 150 miles inside the country that the U.S. will have to occupy. That's where Iran's oil is. But the U.S. will have a nasty battle on their hands in Iran even if they restore a Shah-like puppet in Tehran 30 years after the revolution.

The Saudis would not mind seeing the Iranian regime go. But the Saudis may also be on the list. The US may have to destabilize and control Saudi Arabia some day too. The Wall Street Journal a few years ago revealed that in the 1970s under Nixon, Kissinger had plans drawn up for the US invasion and occupation of the Saudi oil fields. Those plans can be dusted off.

The American oil wars are being launched out of weakness, not strength. The American economy is teetering and without control of the remaining oil it will collapse. There will be massive chaos in any case, when only enough oil remains for the American elite and whomever they choose to share it with.

That will leave an oil-starved China and India, both with nuclear weapons, with no alternative but to bow to America or go to war.

It's not about greed any more. It's about survival. Because the leadership of this country was initially too greedy to switch from oil to solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable alternatives, it may now be too late. Had the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into the invasion and occupation of Iraq been put into alternative energy the world might have had a fighting chance. Now that is far from certain.

What is certain is that these wars are not about democracy. They are not about WMD. The coming one will not even be about Iran's nuclear weapons project. It's about the oil, stupid.

Comments

[CanHandleTheTruth]

China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Pakistan, Indonesia, the former Soviet states around the Caspian and in the Caucasus, and others (Italy, France and even, yes, Israel, albeit tacitly for the latter, and involving oil) conduct tens of billions of dollars of trade with Iran. Oil, natural gas, nuclear products, civic and energy infrastructure, and other sectors are the focus of said global trade.

Unilateral U.S. sanctions haven't dented said trade all that much, either...certainly not in the oil and gas realms.

Considering the above, a US/Israeli war with Iran would turn regional and global almost immediately. It'd be akin to Germany's invasion of Poland, geopolitically. It would also spell the beginning of the end of US global economic hegemony, as Zbig Brzezinski and other informed analysts have warned about.

Also, the Strait of Hormuz, which lies under Iran, is the economic aorta to the globe. War anywhere near it would involve eventual $250/barrel oil, as tanker traffic would cease through said Strait.

All of that said, the powers that be feel cornered economically and geopolitically, and may burn this village (i.e. the US economy) to supposedly save it, whereas they're essentially trying to save their own capital.

[ponderman]

The solutions are simple: An electric automobile that generates most of its electricity with compressed air, produced by a redesigned suspension system. Every movement, when the vehicle is in motion, generates electricity to help keep the batteries charged. Recovering the energy of braking and coasting action, plus photovoltaic cells implanted in the vehicle's roof can do the rest. If that isn't enough, spare air tanks - onboard - can be filled, quickly and cheaply, at any service station.

For the home, an exercise machine that simulates the act of climbing stairs and pumps air with every stroke. The air goes into a storage tank. A 10 minute workout results in an extremely powerful store of compressed air, the controlled release of which, generates a significant amount of electricity. It can be stored in batteries, and/or fed into the grid.

All we need to do is wake up America's engineers. They're overlooking the obvious.

[cambridgedude]

Joe, check your geography. Kansas is 81814 sq miles land area, Iraq alone is over 170,000 sq miles. So the post does come off as a bit flakey when the first easily verifiable facts turn out to be incorrect. Someone else said "conspiracy theory", and when the facts don't check out, it starts to smellthat way.

[RumiSouth]

There isn't oil under all of Iraq. Take the southern fields, Kuwait, the chunk of Saudi Arabia between Kuwait and the Emirates, then cross the gulf into coastal Iran -- that's the area he's talking about.

Try, um, "reading" before you pop off next time, m'kay?

[OkieMon]

war with iran would likely lead to WWIII with russia coming to iran's aid with nukes.

[TheRationalLeft]

Joe, you are conspiracy theorist - a person who refuses to accept the doctrinal norms - which is that we are in the Middle East to spread the seeds of "democracy" and "freedom". Moreover, you refuse to accept our dear leader's proclamations and choose instead to look into documentary record of the past. All that and your anti-American sentiments is exactly why people like you could never convince the knee-jerk reactionary American morons.

http://rationalleft.com/

[paixa3]

I surely hope you are being sarcastic, else you are daft or ignorant, which?

[Durango]

But, but, but but, but, Iran is already a democracy. A flawed democracy but a democracy non the less.

So we would be bringing democracy to a democracy?

O wait. Oil. Never Mind.

[ld]

Joe - oil is in the equation somewhere, but the most important intent behind an Iran war is to even further lock the US into control by the Defense establishment.

[ApolloSpeaks]

SADDAM AND THE MULLAHS

Of course it's about oil. If the mullah's weren't using their oil revenues to fund terrorism and build nukes, if they were used to benefit the Iranian people and not to serve their revolutionary cause, in short, if their regime was moderate like the Shah's there would be no threat of war. The mullahs are on a rendezvous with disaster stupidly walking down the same tragic path taken by Saddam Hussein

[maddogbitesback]

Apollo,

That is such an idiot comment. Saddam Hussein was not interest in religion. He damped it. Iran was doing fine from the viewpoint of Iranians until America and the British decided they had to get rid of the insanely democratic government they had developed which was interested in Iranians. Americans were not on the list and they didn't want to kow tow to the west. The Saudis are second only to the Taliban and they are good buddies of America because they keep pumping oil and within this writers memory they set Bus2 up in his losing business. No problem with Wahabbis in the minds of Bush et co. Osama bin Laden is a Wahabbi. who forgot he had to bow to America. Of course the Saudis use the oil revenue to fund the Saudis who have multiplied like cockroaches. The poor Saudis get less and less.

[MajorKong]

Last time I checked, Saddam fought a horrible bloody 8 year war with the mullahs. One in which we were quite happy to assist. Close to a million Iranians died in that war and I suspect they may still be a little miffed about it.

As for the Shah, he was "moderate" only in that he was friendly to the US. His SAVAK was a particularly nasty bunch even by secret police standards.

[ApolloSpeaks]

Friendly to the US and the Free World, a reliable ally in the Cold War and totally unthreatening to the Middle East until Jimmy Carter came along and undid it all.

[jhNY]

The Shah was a corrupt puppet installed by our CIA to give us a compliant regime from which we could extract oil and intelligence without regard to the welfare of the Iranian people, who were of no interest to us whatsoever then or now.

[CanHandleTheTruth]

The Shah was taken off his thrown in 1978-79 in similar means to how his predecessor, Mossadegh, was removed: Western intelligence, supported tacitly by media sources (the BBC being foremost). This would be ironic if it wasn't for the core reason why - he bucked the wishes of British Petroleum. The gory details are in the history book, "A Century of War" by German historian William Engdahl, as well as in the Shah's memoirs, "Answer to History", published in 1980.

Former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young was quoted back then as proclaiming Khomeini a 'human rights champion'. Carter was oblivious to many of the machinations involved, which more involved Zbig Brzezinski, George Ball and others including, presumably, of course, Henry Kissinger). Look it all up, rather than resting on mainstream-fed laurels and caveats....

[breakfast]

A regime "moderate like the Shah's"?

Iran under the "moderate" Shah was a brutal police state tyranny installed by our CIA when they overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in the 50's.

You must be the only person in the world unaware of that.

[ApolloSpeaks]

The Shah didn't head a revolutionary regime that was threatening to its neighbors and religiously dedicated to the overthrow of the international system. The vast majority of Iranians today would prefer the rule of the Shah over the Mullahs as would every Arab state.

[Durango]

"If the Mullahs weren't using their oil revenues to fund terrorism and build nukes"

We would just have to make that up. Right?

[MysticInd]

Please don't forget that Israel has a part in this also...

[TitanicExplorer]

Sometimes I wonder if many of the right wing supporters of the war suffer from a mild form of retardation. Having a dialogue with these people, explaining the history and current situation in the middle east is an exercise in futility. All they can digest is propaganda that we are 'bringing freedom' to Iraq and anyone who shoots back at our invading army 'hates freedom'.
Now these wingnuts are claiming the elusive WMD were shipped tio Iran, and Iran will attack us if we don't attack them.
The wmd assertion is proposterous- and It's amazing wingnuts seem to think if we attack iran, it will diminish any desire to attack us- It will CREATE the desire for revenge. Are these people on ther right ignorant, psycho or just retarded?

[TRUE BLUE AMERICAN]

A study of the whole story of islam will lay out the reasons for their behavior. The koran is very clear on their mission. I'm not for war but I can see the writing on the wall. A conflict will arise no matter which option you take.( stand back and do nothing or take a pro-active approach.
Try a google search on the truth about islam and or mohammed.

[JacobSinger]

You should try to legitimately educate yourself about Islam instead of buying into and spreading idiotic GOP/rightwing dogma.

[Durango]

Talk about conspiracy theories!

I have studied Islam. I missed the part about Imperialism. They have invaded the American continent how many times?

[CascadianPDX]

I was tempted to say this article was simple and clear enough for even brick dumb right wingers to understand, but I think Titanic is right.... some form of active resistance to assimilating information from the real world is at play with these people. 'Retardation' is too simple a word for what we're dealing with.

Now TBA, in his post below, is probably also correct in a sense... religious extremists suffer a similar condition, but I'd challenge his proposition that we must be proactive over there--I mean, if if TBA is correct about the militant nature of the Muslim world (a real stretch). then, as Joe Lauria says, why take them on over there from a position of weakness? We all know how well pre WWII Japan fared when it found itself dealing from a position of oil weakness. But unlike them, we still have the ability to bootstrap our own ingenuity... so lets take care of our own economy, infrastructure and energy needs so that we are in a position of strength to deal with whatever comes. Support your local, regional and State sustainability efforts... only from the bottom up will we show our so-called leaders the way out of this mess.

[Overd0g]

Perhaps they are thinking about WWII, and still awaiting the Japanese counter-attack.

[DFDoerr]

Do ya think the Senate will pass a war resolution this time?
Like Iraq.

[mejusthavin]

Thank You!

[Marmann]

"Iran is next. Lieberman set up Petraeus to testify last week that Iranian-backed groups are murdering hundreds of American servicemen in Iraq. On Friday Gates called Iran's influence in Iraq "malign" and Bush said if Iran keeps meddling in Iraq "then we'll deal with them."

I'd love to know who truly was responsible for the "coincidental" explosion in the Iranian mosque over the weekend.

[JacobSinger]

My guess is the CIA; it is well known that the US government is currently engaged in searching for ways to destabilize and/or overthrow Iran's government.

If it were indeed the CIA and the Iranians knew as much, under the current circumstance, I suspect they would keep quit about it, so as to deny the US the satisfaction of knowing the covert attack had caused any concern to the government.

[TRUE BLUE AMERICAN]

yeah, the USA is to blame, again. What a bunch of dopes.

[AlanRogers]

Here is a recent clip I saw about US-Iranian Relations.

http://irannegah.com/Video.aspx?id=601

I think the MAJOR reason US is hostile to Iran today is because of the "CRIME" of Indepence. Same reason it suffocated Castro in Cuba. This has nothing to do with Islam or Communism. It has to do with countries which have popular revolutions which throw out American puppets. And US govt. suffocating them.

But this clip puts it in context about the 1953 Coup there, which we Americans should all learn about. In fact Albright apologized for this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KVg2t31c3Ts

I give her major props for acknowleding this. Takes a lot of bravery!

[JacobSinger]

An excellent point, and one that Noam Chomsky has made repeatedly over the years. As Hugo Chavez could relate first hand, the US has a longstanding foreign policy ideology that equates to a pathelogical desire to crush any small nation that resists US efforts to make it a client state.

[castrochavez08]

Great comment AlanRogers. And to think of how Americans still have the Civil war as part of our culture and education in a very real sense, as part of our identity.

1953 was yesterday by comparison.

And to the few fools here who insist that Iran has no oil so that is not a factor.
Crack a book for once and look at a map of the region. The Strait of Hormuz is a highly strategic valuable shipping lane that is part of Iran. Too risky for the long term as far as our oil grabbing leaders are concerned.

Speaking of our leaders. Where do Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton stand on the issue of oil as it relates to Iraq and Iran?

[mimsnpips]

CNN should ask that question instead of their religious interview with the candidates last night.

[mimsnpips]

So we will only occupy a part of Iran. And Maybe Saudi Arabia. If there is a single whacko extremist that doesn't hate us Bush will make sure he does.

in the name of god and oil

[nevadagirl]

It's also about Isreal. That's why Lieberman left the Democratic party and is supporting McCain. The dems aren't willing to detroy the entire middle east in order to prop up Isreal.

[BendOverAri]

Off the subject Nevada but, where do you get your Jackboots?

[provgrays]

Of course it's about the oil. I'm reminded of the classic scene in "Network", where Ned Beatty sets Howard Beale straight on the fact that the world is not about peoples and nations. The world is a college of corporations.

Every soldier in the Middle East is a protroleum soldier and that's all they are. The writer is correct when he says that we may have stood a chance if we had begun serious alternative energy development 30 years ago. The profits were too good and still are too good for executives to tear their eyes away from the bottom line long enough to see the dry wells of the near future.

When the Neocons worshipfully mouth the sacred phrase, "The American Way of Life", they are referring tonthe divine right of America to lap up 25 percent of the world's energy resources. This cannot continue and the drums of war will be used once again to dress up abject greed as July Fourth patriotism.

Believe it if you want to, but your gas tank and oil burner will be nearly empty.

[Overd0g]

Don't worry. There isn't one.

[Paul]

This administration is delusional.

The US is no longer capable of fighting a war - we can't even effectively occupy a third-rate entity like Iraq. The current effort, one that has shown zero results, has stretched our military resources to the limit.

Can we bomb Iran? Maybe. But what would be the point? It will achieve nothing and simply give the Iranians the incentive they need to incite the Iraqi militias to attack vulnerable US forces.

This whole thing is reminiscent of Hitler running the campaign on the Eastern Front.

[jporcelli]

FInally the Huffpost allows someone to write about Peak Oil and its implications. Enough of the BS about there being lots of oil to be consumed if only the oil companies and speculators get out of the way.
We import 60% of our oil, which is a finite resource we don't control. Simple laws of physics are playing out and we find ourselves no longer in control of resources or events.
Sad but true.
Arianna, this is bigger than global warming!!!

[Overd0g]

True, and we have roughly the same amount of control over both: minimal.

[paixa3]

"""""This whole thing is reminiscent of Hitler running the campaign on the Eastern Front."""""

Perfectly stated, thank you.