Terror and Energy Security

Preventive war or New war for oil

By Jurgen Scheffran

[This article originally published in: Wissenschaft und Frieden, January 2003 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.iwif.de/wf103-24.htm.]

Before its assumption of office, the Bush administration formulated two massive foreign policy initiatives: a “never ending war against terrorism” and global expansion of American access to crude oil. Although both problems have different causes and require different strategies, they became interwoven through the course of events. The war against terrorism and the struggle for oil increasingly appear as two sides of the same medallion. In both cases, what are involved are consequences of a non-sustainable economic mode and development of the global hegemony of the US.

Attacking Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s overthrow have seemingly become fixed monomaniac ideas of the Bush administration despite worldwide protests and the risk of further destabilization of the Middle East. Doesn’t the US government have any other problems than eliminating the alleged weapon arsenal of a weak potentate? Shouldn’t the struggle against terror not involved in the case of Iraq have priority? Or will Bush merely perfect the work of his father against Saddam?

From the Carter doctrine to the Enron connection

George W. Bush’s emphasis on an invasion of Iraq cannot be justified with the official arguments alone. One obvious factor is faded out in the official substantiations: crude oil. The enormous oil reserves in the Middle East were long a main motive for US policy in this region. Already in the 1980 Carter doctrine, any effort at impairing the oil flow from the Gulf region was regarded as a hostile “attack on the vital interests of the United States” to be “repelled with all means including military force”. After the end of the Cold War, the father of the current president invoked this doctrine even if the 1991 Operation Desert Storm officially involved the enforcement of international law after Iraq’s attack on Kuwait more than “blood for oil”.

Now George W. Bush wants to use the troop presence of the US that increased considerably after the second Gulf war for the third and decisive Gulf war not to enforce international law that he usually ignores. Like his father, the current Bush is committed to the Texan oil clan that financed his election campaign. Bush’s top energy advisor is vice president Dick Cheney who organized the new energy program of the administration. Until his assumption of office, he was director of the Halliburton Energy corporation and is still its partner today. His old friends from the energy economy including some from the energy conglomerate Enron actively support him unafraid of criminal intrigues and spectacular bankruptcy. Lawrence Lindsey, Bush’s economic advisor in the White House, Pat Wood, director of the US energy regulatory agency and Thomas White, Bush’s Secretary of the Air Force are examples of the Enron connection. Bush’s security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, was formerly a member of the board of directors of the Chevron oil corporation.

Growing oil dependence

If present production rates continue, the supply of oil will be exhausted in 42 years, gas in 65 years and coal in 169 years according to the 2001 estimates of the German economic ministry. The situation is most dramatic for oil. Over half of the known reserves are already consumed. Serious battles over distribution can be expected in the coming years. In addition, the geographical distribution is uneven. 94 years are predicted for the Middle East, 16 for North America, 33 for Russia, 13 for Norway and only 10 years for England. Oil imports from Russia and the North Sea cover 31% or 33% of German needs. Germany’s energy dependence on the Middle East would intensify with their cancellation.

The US is presently increasing its oil dependence on large oil producer countries since the domestic oil production of the US experiences a relatively sudden decline and the demand of the US for crude oil rises every day. By 2012, according to the latest calculations of the US Energy department, the daily import need of the US will be 6 million barrels of oil greater than today where 17 million barrels are consumed per day (7 barrels are equivalent to a metric ton). Part of this oil should come from the oil fields in Latin America, Africa, Russia and the Caspian basin. However the lion’s share is expected from the Gulf region since the necessary reserves for a considerable increase in production only exist there. With an estimated 113 billion barrels, Iraq is in second place behind Saudi Arabia (262 billion barrels). Together with Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, these countries control over two-thirds of the known oil reserves of the world.

The Bush administration is aware of its dependence on oil and already drew conclusions in the National Energy Policy (also called the Cheney report, after its author vice-president Dick Cheney) published on May 17, 2001. The report first caused a furor because it didn’t disclose the names of the participating advisors and announced drilling projects in the Arctic National reservoir. The central recommendation of the report was that energy security in the future should be the one focus of US trade- and foreign policy. In a word, “growth in international demand for oil will lead to a growing pressure for the global control of oil.”

Half of US oil consumption comes from foreign sources. By 2020, the proportion will rise to two-thirds. “The oil producers of the Middle East are central for the oil security of the earth” and will remain a main focus of US energy policy. The US must maintain its good relations to Saudi Arabia… The Gulf states must be convinced to considerably increase their daily production to satisfy the oil thirst of the US. Iraq and Saudi Arabia must add millions of barrels to the present daily production in the next two decades.

The Importance of Iraq

For a decade, the Iraqi population has suffered under the boycott imposed by the US. At the same time Iraq provides the US with 800,000 barrels of crude oil every day, amounting to around 9% of the total oil imports of the US Since the US doesn’t want to buy directly in Iraq, trade with Baghdad occurs through middle men in the framework of the “oil-for-food” program.

The long-term strategic significance of Iraq for the US is more important than the present oil influx. The US can only theoretically satisfy its growing oil need through imports from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emigrates. US government representatives fear that conflicts and unstable political conditions or even inadequate investments could paralyze the supply one day. Other states could open up additional sources including Russia, Nigeria and the states near the Caspian Sea. However none of these states can keep pace with the production capacity of Iraq.

As a result, the US government will change the situation in Iraq to its advantage as quickly as possible and thus prevent others from doing business with Iraq. According to the 2001 World Energy Prospect of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Iraq has already sold the rights to 44 billion barrels of oil which is equivalent to the total proven reserves of all east Asian countries. European oil conglomerates like ENI and Total FinaElf together with Russian Lukoil and the Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC) are the contractual partners.




If the current regime stays in power, US strategists fear the Iraqi oil reserves could be controlled by firms of other states. One possibility for preventing this foreign control would be overthrowing the present government and establishing a new government friendly to the US. Under this perspective, the intervention plans of the US appear as part of the internal capitalist competition in the oil sector. The US tries to instrumentalize its military to assure its firms of favorable terms of business. Still no one in the US government admits this. This may remove the last remnant of Bush’s credibility in the world and provoke intense resistance at home and abroad under the slogan “No Blood for Oil”.

Oil and terror – a strong connection

Considering the powerful fixation of the American public on threats through terrorism, directing foreign policy to protecting oil supplies is not simple. The battle against international terrorism is a suitable pretext for developing military power in important regions for energy security. Several factors encourage a permanent connection of the anti-terror struggle with safeguarding the oil supply. Some of the largest worldwide oil reservoirs lie in politically unstable regions, above all in the explosive Middle East. At least two of the great oil producer countries – Iran and Iraq – belong to the “axis of evil” in the eyes of the US government. Syria and Yemen, some Gulf emigrates and anti-Israeli terrorist groups in Lebanon and Palestine also belong to the world where contempt of human rights and support of Islamic groups is still silently accepted. 15 of 18 assassins of September 11 came from Saudi Arabia, to say nothing to Osama bin Laden himself. The US would be somewhat more independent of the arbitrariness of the Saudi dynasty by controlling Iraqi oil.

While it is hard to make a connection between Saddam and Al Quaida, the US government attempts to count an attack on Iraq in the struggle against terror. The Afghanistan expedition was a model for coupling oil and terror. The country was probably bombed more on account of its strategic location at the juncture of different great powers and oil routes than for supporting of international terrorism. Representatives of the US oil firm Unocal that closely cooperated in the past with the Taliban pleaded for a regime change in Afghanistan to realize their project of an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. Today Unocal denies this and refuses participating in the oil pipeline.

Similar connections are also clear in other areas. According to the Cheney report, the region around the Caspian Sea is regarded as a fast growing oil production area effectively integrated in world oil trade. The proven oil reserves in Azerbeidchan and Kasachstan amount to 20 billion barrels, more than the reserves in the North Sea. To assure its access, the US after September 11 began establishing permanent bases in Tsadschikistan, Usbekistan and Kirgistan. They carry out military training operations in Georgia with several hundred advisors of US special forces. Arming the Georgian forces for the battle against terrorism is central to protect the pipeline transporting oil from the Caspian Sea to the shores of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Similarly the US supports Colombia’s army in protecting an oil pipeline that often was destroyed by rebels. Since the abduction in a Moscow theater (October 2002) by a Tschetchnya commando unit, the connection of terror and security of oil resources (in the Caucasus region) also represents a massive problem for Russia.

The power struggles around numerous oil production routes, the lifelines of the western world in the triangle between the Middle East, Central Asia and the Balkans, can hardly be understood. The connection to a trans-Baltic oil pipeline through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania could be mentioned here. The feasibility study was done by Cheney’s firm Halliburton whose subsidiary Brown & Root built the largest US base outside the US, Bondsteel, in Kosovo near the planned pipeline route. These may be the strangest coincidences but they also put into question the argument that Kosovo has no real strategic significance for the US.

The Cycle of Violence

A connection of oil and terror exists more on the causal agent side. Realization of US interests produces subordination, readiness for violence or both. The exploitation of the natural resources of this earth wherever they may lie provokes the resistance of the affected. Terrorism occurs in the worst case. The supposedly free capitalist economic system promotes concentration of wealth and creation of new vulnerabilities that terrorists can exploit. As the World Trade Center was a symbol for that, oil pipelines, refineries, nuclear power plants and airports could be attractive targets in the future.

The shock waves starting from terrorist attacks like September 11, 2001 could also plunge the international petroleum industry into turbulences reflected in abrupt price fluctuations. The price per barrel of the so-called OPEC-basket (a mixed index for seven different oil producers) fell from $24 to around $17 between August and December 2001 as a consequence of fear of recession and reduced demand. However since the beginning of 2002, the price rose abruptly again to $24 by the middle of May. A recovery of the US economy, declining supply in industrial countries and the imminent US military intervention in Iraq are possible reasons. In the case of a military strike against Iraq, the OPEC countries, it is assumed, will yield to the pressure of the US and increase their production.

Arguing whether oil is the decisive reason or only one reason among several for a possible US military intervention in Iraq is useless. An offensive war can only succeed if there is a relatively broad alliance in the US ruling establishment. Different motives come together in the case of Iraq:

- striving of the US for global hegemony,

- demand for regional predominance in the Middle East and bordering regions,

- elimination of political enemies and their potential armaments including weapons of mass destruction,

- interest of weapons lobbies in many possible wars and weapon sales,

- interest in controlling the remaining oil- and gas supplies that are eminently important for its economy.

A military strike against Iraq could arise out of the coalition urging growth, power and violence. A possible de-stabilization in the Middle East and Israel’s endangerment are not obstructions. Rather the more the spiral of violence turns, the easier it will be for Bush and Sharon to force their policy based on violence for eliminating enemies and rivals.

The End of the Oil Age

The grim determination with which the Bush administration fights for oil sovereignty reflects the fact that the prosperity of the US and the whole western world is established on that black raw material that gushed out of American soil around 140 years ago. The lifestyle and its unrestrained resource consumption come to an end when the cheap oil- and gas supplies reach their end in this century. Even if the earth still has energy reserves, this hardly matters if the physical limits are reached. Thus more energy will be needed to extract these reserves than to use them. Technology cannot be a panacea here.

In the US, the ending oil age on which American prosperity and lifestyles are based triggers massive threatening fears as though the debates on the limits of growth 30 years ago never occurred. Excessive resource consumption and failure in searching for alternatives which for a long time never entered the thinking of the leadership may endanger the energy security of the US more than a few terrorists. For Cheney, energy savings and use of regenerative energies come last. Maintenance of the fossil age and privatization of the energy system are far more important despite the bad experiences with the electricity blackout in California. The alternatives are manifest and explained in detail in numerous studies, for example in a study of the Washington Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (Makhijani 2001) that compares the Cheney energy plan with an alternative reconstruction of the energy system.

Both the supply and the security of the US would be helped far more if energy savings and promotion of regenerative energy were vigorously emphasized. The recent report of the Enquete commission of the German Bundestag “Sustainable Energy Supply under the Conditions of Globalization and Liberalization” came to similar conclusions. However creating a strong coalition for energy conversion is difficult as long as a rational energy policy conflicts with the existing structures of power and interest and war is regarded as an instrument for securing energy.