The Thing Is,
It Is About Oil
By Linda McQuaig
The astonishing thing about American power is not that it will soon
crush the feeble nation of Iraq, but that it has managed for months
to keep world attention riveted on Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction"
when Washington's real interest is Iraq's oil.
In saying that, I realize I risk being dismissed as a naive, knee-jerk
simpleton.
One is allowed to voice skepticism
about the upcoming invasion and still move in sophisticated circles
these days. It's quite appropriate at a cocktail party, for instance,
to question the timing of the invasion or to wonder whether the U.S.
has the stomach to deal with post-war Iraq.
These are serious questions,
according to New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick, who at the same
time is dismissive of those who think war is being driven by "a
conspiracy of oil interests."
Let me redeem myself slightly,
by saying that I partially agree with the sophisticates this
war is not just about oil.
It's also, for instance,
about eliminating an intransigent foe of Israel and possibly diverting
Iraqi water to Israel. And it's about giving George Bush a major military
victory, without risking nuclear mayhem too close to an election.
But it's also very much about
oil. It's odd there's so much resistance to this notion, since commentators
sniff the oil factor quickly enough when analyzing the motivations of
countries like France and Russia.
These same commentators also
generally subscribe to the view that the ordinary person (or "homo
economicus" as the economics textbooks call him) is motivated by
material self-interest.
But those who occupy the
White House and who got there courtesy of corporate financial
backing are seen as different, eschewing material concerns for
higher ideals like peace and democracy. This, then, would be the "sophisticated"
view.
Let's look for a minute at
Iraq's oil, even if no one else wants to.
One of the striking things
about Iraq's oil reserves besides their sheer volume is
how undeveloped they are. This isn't just because of the past decade
of sanctions. It goes back to the 1920s when the seven major oil companies
(American and British) began operating in the Middle East.
The companies functioned
as a cartel. With explicit agreements not to compete against each other,
they carved up the rich Middle East oil reserves, thereby enabling them
to control most of the world's oil supply and keep prices and profits
high. (All this was documented by a U.S. Senate investigation in the
1950s.)
The fledgling Arab states,
created out of the old Ottoman empire, had little choice but to accept
the piddling royalties the companies offered.
Iraq was always more demanding
than the others. In the early 1960s, the popular Iraqi leader Abdul
Qarim Qasim invited in some independent oil companies as competition
for the cartel. The cartel didn't like that and, since it controlled
access to world oil markets, the independents stayed away from Iraq.
The cartel punished Iraq by pumping less Iraqi oil, thereby reducing
the nation's meager revenues.
Instead of knuckling under
to the cartel, Iraq tried something bolder in 1972: it nationalized
its oil. (Neighboring Iran had attempted a similar nationalization in
the 1950s, but the U.S. and Britain stepped in and organized a coup
that replaced the nationalistic leader there.)
The West couldn't really
intervene to stop the Iraqi nationalization, however, because Iraq invited
in the Soviets to develop its oil fields and buy its oil.
The Iraqi deal with the Soviets
regarded as the ultimate treachery by the oil companies, Washington
and London was negotiated by the Number 2 man in the new Baathist
regime that had seized power in Iraq. His name was Saddam Hussein.
The companies and Western
powers were further incensed the following year with the emergence of
OPEC as an aggressive cartel of oil-producing nations determined to
win a bigger share of the oil wealth, with Iraq the leading militant.
Now, in the post-Soviet era,
Iraq's oil fields remain huge, undeveloped, ripe for exploitation
and essentially unprotected. And the treacherous Saddam remains in power.
But the idea that the U.S.
is after oil is seen as simplistic and crass. It suggests the White
House is willing to use its immense military superiority to advance
the interests of its corporate elite, or to settle old scores. Many
people prefer to think of the U.S. as a benign force struggling to make
the world safe or, at worst, as a bumbling do-gooder that sometimes
gets carried away in its zeal to bring democracy to others.
Given the immensity of U.S.
power, one can understand the temptation to believe this. Any other
interpretation may just seem too scary.
Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based
author and political commentator. Her column appears every Sunday.
Sunday, February 16, 2003