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JLK
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
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 Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 9:19 am Post subject: |
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I think the US wants the Iraqi government to approve things in the near future (before troop strength is drawn down) like long term oil contracts and long term military base agreements. SCIRI is willing to play along but Sadr and the Sunnis are not.
The US wants Iraq on a petrodollar recycling arrangement like we have had with Saudi Arabia, where much of the money is sent back to the US through service contracts, and the much of the rest is invested on Wall Street.
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 9:50 am Post subject: |
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They want that but are unlikely to get it - certainly not in the short term. Security situation is so dire it scares off the majors plus Iraqi govt. is still squabbling about who can legally sign oil contracts, local govt. or central and the "central" crowd (sunnis + shi'ites... Hakim's "localist" tendencies have been reined in by Sistani+Maliki) have blocked the kurdish localists for now. Chances of a govt. dependent on sadrist support ever OKing anything even vaguely resembling long-term sweetheart-deal oil contracts with US companies and/or permanent US base agreements is pretty low.
Btw, the current Oil Minister is Hussain al-Shahristani - nuclear physicist, in the United Iraqi Alliance big-three shi'ite party as an "independent", very close to Sistani. So far, latest I can fish up is that his ministry is renegotiating Saddam-era contracts with China, intends to renegotiate all Saddam-era contracts (i.e. has NOT thrown them out the window but wants better terms)... and is working on joint-development contracts with Iran for oilfields straddling their border.
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P.S. SCIRI is willing to play along... I wouldn't count on it beyond lipservice i.e. declarations of pseudo-moderate "good intentions" that somehow never come to fruition. So SCIRI is currently playing the US along for its own purposes but if you consider it the Iraqi branch of the Iranian Supreme Council - as its name indicates - you'll get closer to the truth than by discounting it as a US stooge.
Does Iran want its local branch office to tie its oil-rich neighbour hand and foot to US oil majors thus decreasing its own blackmail power on the international oil market? Does Iran want permanent US bases and missiles right up against its own borders? 
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JLK
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:20 am Post subject: |
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The US may feel that so much is at stake that it cannot afford to give up. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves, and they are largely undeveloped. One way or another its oil production is going to increase. As Saudi production declines (it may be beginning to right now) within a decade or so Iraq will almost certainly become the world's leading oil exporter. The US is already on a precarious economic footing with the twin deficits spiraling out of control.
Bush's advisors may be telling him that literally the economic future of the US hinges on long term success (and by success I mean the recycling of petrodollars back into the US economy) in Iraq. On top of this is the little known fact that major Western oil companies are already having a big problem with reserve replacement and this is going to get a lot worse in the years to come. They have been fudging their books for years just like Shell was caught doing a few years ago. The market capitalization of the oil companies (critical to Wall Street) ultimately hinges on their ability to replace the oil that is being pumped with new reserves. They are frozen out of the best areas of the world by national oil companies, which dominate OPEC. The West was saved from this same situation back in the late '70s by the discovery and exploitation of the North Sea and Prudhoe Bay oil fields. However, production in both of these has been dropping quickly in the past few years due to depletion. This is very bad news economically for the US and (not coincidentally the only other country that has stuck with us in Iraq) Britain.
If the magnitude of the problem is what I suspect it is, then they will stop at nothing to get their way. Public opinion will be managed in a way that whatever actions they decide to take are supported. No doubt there is already widespread bribery and extortion going on. That can achieve a lot. It is quite possible that they will arrange for some incident (like 9/11) to galvanize US opinion on staying engaged in Iraq. Another possibility is that they will arrange for a severe but temporary oil supply shortage in order to scare the hell out of Western voters. Unemployment, having to walk and bicycle to get around and not finding enough food on the grocery shelves for a month or two would change the POV of a lot of voters. This may sound extreme, but it is within the realm of possibility.
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:31 am Post subject: |
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THE OIL FACTOR...
| Quote: | | In a 1991 World Bank-coordinated study, intended to encourage private investment in the petroleum potential of eight African nations, the geologists put Somalia and Sudan at the top of the list of prospective commercial oil producers. |
Re Iraq - they'd do better to press for better relations with Iran, progressive decrease in political hysteria over the next couple of years = 2 birds with one stone. Both countries are interested in/need oil-major investment and oilfield development contributions, provided the contracts are with national oil companies and on decent terms, if the political tension simmered down my bet is that if met with more elasticity by the US on its beloved nuclear research program (i.e not a total stop but tight monitoring), even Iran would be quite prepared to go the tenders route and Khamenei's Little Wolf in Bloodstained Shi'ite-Sheep's Clothing next door would do likewise. Iraq's already proved the imposition-by-direct-military-violence route is counterproductive for long-term US oil interests in the ME, time for a change of approach.
....
Some good careful analysis and reflections in A-Times on the perilous Iran/Iraq/US/Saudi fourstep by MK Bhadrakumar
| Quote: | | T S Eliot's words come to mind while reflecting on the tortuous course that US-Iran relations are destined to take in the year ahead. "Footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take towards the door we never opened into the rose garden ..." |
Danse macabre... or time to tango?
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish
Last edited by parvati_roma on Sat Jan 06, 2007 12:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Cheryl
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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JLK, there are other ways to deal with the oil problem, if it is as bad as you think, which I tend to believe is not so. Like getting serious about nuclear power and other ways not to use so much petroleum.
The Bush advisors would have to be very blinkered indeed to be obsessing in Iraq about this sort of thing.
Oh wait....
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JLK
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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| PR Quote wrote: | | In a 1991 World Bank-coordinated study, intended to encourage private investment in the petroleum potential of eight African nations, the geologists put Somalia and Sudan at the top of the list of prospective commercial oil producers. |
Iraq is where the money is. From the EIA (part of the US Dept. of Energy)
Sudan
| Quote: | | According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Sudan contained proven conventional reserves of 563 million barrels as of January 2006. This is more than twice the proven 262 million barrels estimated in 2001. |
Somalia
| Quote: | | Somalia has no proven oil reserves, and only 200 billion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves. Somalia currently has no hydrocarbon production. |
Iraq
| Quote: | | According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Iraq contains 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves[JLK note: that's billion with a "b"], the third largest in the world (behind Saudi Arabia and Canada [JLK note- this includes the tar sands]), concentrated overwhelmingly (65 percent or more) in southern Iraq. Estimates of Iraq's oil reserves and resources vary widely, however, given that only about 10 percent of the country has been explored. Some analysts (the Baker Institute [JLK note- as in Jim Baker], Center for Global Energy Studies, the Federation of American Scientists, etc.) believe, for instance, that deep oil-bearing formations located mainly in the vast Western Desert region could yield large additional oil resources (possibly another 100 billion barrels or more), but have not been explored. |
Now take a look at this graph, which tells you where the biggest unexploited reserves are (top left)
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JLK
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Cheryl wrote: | | JLK, there are other ways to deal with the oil problem, if it is as bad as you think, which I tend to believe is not so. Like getting serious about nuclear power and other ways not to use so much petroleum. |
In the energy sense you are right, but not necessarily in the economic sense. I don't claim to know all of the answers, though.
| Cheryl wrote: | The Bush advisors would have to be very blinkered indeed to be obsessing in Iraq about this sort of thing.
Oh wait.... |
That's the thing. Take Cheney for example. In 2000 he was widely considered to be a very level-headed, competent administrator, not an ideologue. When you have people like Cheney doing extreme things you have to ask what is really motivating it. He was quoted several years ago as saying "The American way of life is not negotiable." It is a good bet that he thinks what the US has been doing in Iraq is extremely important to the national interest, and he has been able to pull Bush along on this.
If you look at the chart I posted above, it is clear that they saw Iraq as a ripe plum for the picking back in 2003. What we don't know is whether they thought control of Iraqi oil was a dire necessity to US interests or that it would just be nice to have. We are going to find out in the next year, I think.
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JLK
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 10:24 pm Post subject: |
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| JLK wrote: | I think the US wants the Iraqi government to approve things in the near future (before troop strength is drawn down) like long term oil contracts and long term military base agreements. SCIRI is willing to play along but Sadr and the Sunnis are not.
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Here we go....hot off the presses..
Future of Iraq: The spoils of war
How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches
| Quote: | Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.
The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. |
| Quote: |
Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals. |
What the article doesn't point out is that this is easy oil to recover as well. The "lifting costs" for Iraqi oil are much lower than they are in most other regions in which Western oil companies operate. This will make the deal even more profitable.
| JLK wrote: | | The US wants Iraq on a petrodollar recycling arrangement like we have had with Saudi Arabia, where much of the money is sent back to the US through service contracts, and the much of the rest is invested on Wall Street. |
This is the next step, if they can bribe the deal through the Iraqi parliament. The oil fields and pipelines will need "protection" from insurgents provided by US/UK companies like Blackwater and paid for by the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government will need guidance investing its oil revenues. Bechtel and Halliburton will provide reconstruction.
Sadr and the Sunnis are not going to like this proposal, but that is for another thread.
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JLK
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity
| Quote: | | "Three outside groups have had far more opportunity to scrutinise this legislation than most Iraqis," said Mr Muttitt. "The draft went to the US government and major oil companies in July, and to the International Monetary Fund in September. Last month I met a group of 20 Iraqi MPs in Jordan, and I asked them how many had seen the legislation. Only one had." |
| Quote: | | Iraq's sovereign right to manage its own natural resources could also be threatened by the provision in the draft that any disputes with a foreign company must ultimately be settled by international, rather than Iraqi, arbitration. |
In other words, if you try to nationalize the oil industry we have a pretext to invade again.
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JLK
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johnwilkins
Joined: 15 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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There are other aspects to economics that you aren't considering. First would be the stated goals for the war:
1.) WMD production
2.) Terror sponsorship
These two factors are quite important. There is also another dimension: weapons purchases. By knocking Iraq down, its next set of weapons platforms aren't likely to be to the countries that have held its Shia population under the thumb of the Sunni minority. That's largely a Britain, France, Germany, Russia problem, with the Brits at least having the argument that they helped liberate the Shia from Sunni rule.
The issue here is the cost-effectiveness of weapons platforms. Mass production requires a certain volume of purchases. Without that volume, defense costs are astronomical. If Iraq doesn't buy French or Russian weapons, those two geopolitical competitors will see their unit costs soar.
Currency markets are heavily arbitraged, so I don't think the petro-dollar recycling makes all that much difference. But weapons and military alliances are another matter.
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JLK
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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I did a more detailed blog post on this.
| Quote: | | Currency markets are heavily arbitraged, so I don't think the petro-dollar recycling makes all that much difference. But weapons and military alliances are another matter. |
I'd like to hear what Sašo thinks about this.
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johnwilkins
Joined: 15 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 3:07 am Post subject: |
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| JLK wrote: | | The single most important goal of the Iraq invasion was to ensure that Iraq ended up on a petrodollar recycling arrangement like the United States has had with Saudi Arabia, where much of the money is sent back to the US through service contracts, and the much of the rest is invested on Wall Street. |
This is the thesis, but there doesn't seem to be a lot to back it up. Can you go beyond the anecdotal, such as the president's advisers are telling him the world depends upon petrodollars? People like Al Gore would advise that the use of oil is the greatest danger. It is the nature of this world that we can find anyone to tell us a doom story, but that doesn't necessarily make it so.
| JLK wrote: | | Iraq has the second largest conventional oil reserves in the world (five times more oil than in the United States), and they are largely undeveloped. |
The U.S. also has substantial undeveloped resources, and no matter where they may be, there is usually numerous factions trying to prevent the U.S. from developing them. I understand there are those who will argue passionately about "the environment," but I am quite skeptical of those who find environmental threats in places like the U.S., but don't find the same threats in China.
| JLK wrote: | | It is clear that the US/UK saw Iraq as a ripe plum for the picking back in 2003. What we don't know is whether they thought control of Iraqi oil was a dire necessity to US interests or that it would just be nice to have. |
Consider 9/11. A very small amount of capital was utilized to destroy a very large amount of capital, and to spawn two wars. It's not so much the value of oil that's at issue. Rather, it is the fact that these proceeds can be used to develop advanced weapons and distributed via terrorism that has many of these politicos desperate to deprive America's enemies of control of a valued resource. It's much cheaper to buy oil than it is to steal it.
| JLK wrote: | | The hasty recent execution of Saddam Hussein may have been arranged in order to placate the Sadrists and have them return to the parliament, not because they would be likely to support the law, but in order to give it greater legitimacy should it pass. |
I think it was also to put the damper on those who want to put him back in power, which include many Western interests too.
Now, when you start talking about weapons platforms and service contracts, it gets more interesting. However, who loses and why is a very important question to ask. Perhaps it is more important than trying to find the "real reason" for the Iraq War. My view is that it is French and German contracting firms and Russian and French arms merchants who lose the most. If you look at all the sanctions busting that went on from France and Germany, it isn't hard to see what's at stake for those nations. For some reason, though, those who want to attack the U.S. have a strong tendency to scoff at the idea that any nation would be in competition with the U.S.
The EU rapid reaction force, the Galileo GPS system, the sanctions busting in Iraq, and the near universal hatred for Israel and sympathy for terrorists that runs the gamut in Europe is sufficient to make one suspicious. Calling the U.S. an 'intolerable hyperpower' predates the Bush administration.
Following the invasion, the big brouhaha was about the U.S. not letting France or Germany participate as lead contractors. That's what we're really dealing with.
So when you boil it down to the basics, the U.S. is at war with its adversaries in Europe and Russia. It isn't interested in colonizing Iraq in the 19th Century sense of the word, nor is it interested in "stealing" the resources. Instead, it is interested in preventing an EU military counterweight to the U.S. It also seems that the U.S. has largely been successful in that effort. The people most angry with the U.S. throughout the "world" appear to be European. That Iraq has such a ridiculous supply of weapons should be a significant clue.
That should enjoy some currency. However, the same people who would have you believe that they really just want to save the environment in America, but not China, or care about Human Rights in Iraq, but not Darfur are the same people who would have you believe that the EU has no military ambitions to thwart the U.S. military, and that Ronald Reagan had nothing to do with the fall of the Soviet Union.
You see, currencies are too well arbitraged for changing the pricing structure of oil from dollars to Euros to really matter. However, if that is evidence of a client-state alliance to buy weapons and engineering services from the EU and Russia; then, the petrodollars argument makes some sense. The strict financial argument doesn't make any sense, but the geopolitical one does; and that is the argument that everyone denies--even though all the evidence points in that direction.
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parvati_roma
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| Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:13 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | If you look at all the sanctions busting that went on from France and Germany, it isn't hard to see what's at stake for those nations. |
Huh? US was certainly not being "squeezed out" of the Iraqi market by Europeans - the largest proportion of the "sanctions busting" was by American oil interests not European ones:
US and UK were alone in the UNSC in insisting that the sanctions be maintained, not only France and Germany but China, Russia, Turkey, Egypt ... along with most other countries in the world were pressing to have the sanctions lifted. Removing the sanctions would have allowed US companies to trade freely and openly with Iraq no less than those of other countries - instead of doing so through transparent back-door deals as previously.
... and with oil sales denominated in dollars, FAIK the post-iraq-invasion fall of the dollar against the euro means US now pays around 30% more for its now far more expensive oil purchases than we do for ours... i.e. partially shields us from the oil price hike??? 
....
| Quote: | | Following the invasion, the big brouhaha was about the U.S. not letting France or Germany participate as lead contractors |
Nah - the big brouhaha was that France and Germany didn't "come round" and kiss ass after the invasion i.e. refused (unlike Berlusconi and Aznar) to send in their troops to police the shattered remnants of Iraq plus provide massive amounts of "reconstruction assistance" funding to defray your own invasion and occupation costs. If they had agreed to do so - as you'd been expecting - you were more than ready to allow them their share of spoils-sharing rights in return.
........
| Quote: | | Calling the U.S. an 'intolerable hyperpower' predates the Bush administration. |
Reason why European restiveness and resentment re US behaviour predates Bush is that after the self-induced collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and Russia the US, instead of bringing its now totally unnecessary troops home from Europe and disbanding the now-superfluous NATO-thingy that had been designed to contain the USSR and control western Europe in the cold-war context, has been consistently falling over backwards ever since the early 1990s to try to invent/create arguments/doctrines/functions/systems/ tensions that can serve as pretexts for maintaining its vassalage-stranglehold over Europe through the NATO framework - essentially with the intent of maintaining its still-massive Western European base-presence (well over 100,000 US servicemen + spies still here, lolling around on vast expanses of prime European real estate scratching, plotting, swimming and golfing - very largely at our expense - hey why don't you send THEM over to Iraq, eh????  ) and thus continuing to exert control over/interfere in our national defence and security systems, governments, domestic politics etc etc and arm-twist us so as to be able to exploit our troops and military hardware as "foreign legions" for it to send all over the world on fake-humanitarian-or-whatever "globocopping" missions in support/preservation/furtherance of its global hegemony ambitions and economic/corporate interests.
And whenever we raise objections to this system in favour of reclaiming our own national/regional freedom and independence - or at very least having the right to an equal say over what it does in our very sensitive, very unstable and very delicately-balanced immediate environs - we get insulted/patronised/lectured at on why the US is and evermore shall remain the all-knowing, all-deciding "indispensable nation" that thanks to its divinely-appointed "manifest destiny" can "see further" so we and everyone else on the globe must shut up put up and generally obediently grovel and kowtow to it for evermore... plus of course funding it from here to eternity = intolerable hyperpuissance.
| Quote: | | The people most angry with the U.S. throughout the "world" appear to be European. |
Huh? You should get around more, or at least check out the global attitudes polls: US unpopularity in Europe is great and constantly increasing, but its bad-guy reputation and international-threat status is even more strongly felt in Latin America, the ME and North Africa, Russia.. and of course Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea etc.
...............
Re previous JW post:
| Quote: | | By knocking Iraq down, its next set of weapons platforms aren't likely to be to the countries that have held its Shia population under the thumb of the Sunni minority. That's largely a Britain, France, Germany, Russia problem |
US/UK starved 'em! your sanctions were not good for shi'ite kiddies' health/mortality-rates- and as you know, Iraqis are very family-minded. Plus you egged 'em on into an open uprising following the gulf war then sat back and watched as they got massacred.
.....
Iran is sh'ite, will be/is the closest, most influential friend of Iraq's shi'ite-headed govt. US/UK have been trying to get Iran heavily sanctioned with a view to bombing it. US n' Uk hate Iran and it's mutual, Russia sells it weapons and reactors and protects it from serious US/UK harm-plots through the UN, France n' Germany both negotiate and trade with it, Germany and Italy are its main trading partners, swap birthday greetings. France Italy Spain and Germany are shielding Shi'ites in Lebanon from further Israeli attack - so why the heck should Shi'ites, Iraqi or otherwise, be more commercially-hostile to "us" than to you-all?
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JLK
Joined: 17 Apr 2002
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| Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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The heat against Muqtada al-Sadr has obviously been turned up in the US media within the past few weeks. Al Sadr's militia is unfailingly labeled as "extremist," as opposed to the presumably more "centrist" Badr Brigades, even though the latter has reportedly been more heavily involved in the sectarian violence against Sunnis than the Sadrists have. The more cynical among us may take this as a sign that the US has reason to believe that al-Sadr is going to stand in the way of the proposed new Iraqi hydrocarbons law. Al Sadr recently met with Ayatollah Sistani and it is a safe bet that the proposed law figured prominently in the discussion.
Several weeks ago, the United States reportedly tried to arrange to have SCIRI and other compliant political parties leave the United Iraqi Shi'ite list in order to form a new coalition with Sunni elements in the Iraqi parliament. Sistani reportedly used his influence to prevent this from happening. At the same time, however, the Sadrists were exploring a coalition of their own with Sunni parties that share the Sadrist’s nationalist goals of having foreign military forces leave Iraq and for a strong central Iraqi government that has complete control over future oil revenues. Reporter Pepe Escobar, writing in Asia Times, explains the significance of this:
| Quote: | | The crucial development in the next few weeks is Muqtada's fine-tuning of a stunning Shi'ite counterpunch to demolish once and for all the US-created pro-sectarian strategy: a nationalist, pan-Islamist, anti-occupation coalition of the Sadrists and the neo-Ba'athists,plus any other religious or secular anti-occupation group. Transcending the Sunni/Shi'ite divide, this would preempt any threat of all-out civil war - not to mention decide the fierce Shi'ite family feud between Hakim and Muqtada in the Sadrists' favor. No wonder US Senator John McCain wants to "take out" Muqtada as much as the Pentagon does. |
A recent interview with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on PBS NewsHour seemed to confirm that the United States is preparing to escalate hostilities against the Mehdi Army if the Sadrists stand in the way of the passage of the proposed hydrocarbon law:
| Quote: | MARGARET WARNER: Now, you've been speaking with some of those leaders. They've come to Washington in the last couple of weeks. After those discussions, how feasible does this idea of a new moderate coalition within the Iraqi government sound to you, that is one that splits off the more radical Shiites, the ones allied with Sadr, and the more moderate Shiites go in with the Sunnis, some Sunnis and Kurds? Is that feasible?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, the definition is: Are these people who are now willing to have a plan for national reconciliation -- which means hydrocarbons law, for instance, the sharing of resources -- and are they willing to stand by the Iraqi armed forces, the Iraqi prime minister when he goes after the people who are...
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There has been a virtual media blackout in the American press when it comes to the proposed hydrocarbon law and the significance of its introduction within the Iraqi parliament, which is reportedly scheduled within the next few days.
"Victory in Iraq" is a phrase that is being used constantly with little attempt to explain what form such a victory may take. However, passage of the hydrocarbons law, which would essentially obligate Iraq to hand over control of its oil resources to Big Oil for the next 30 years would likely constitute such a victory in the eyes of the US political and industry leaders who pushed for the Iraq invasion in the first place.[/quote]
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