This other thread about calculating the cost of war got me to thinking.
Suppose the real reason the US is interested in Iraq has more to do with a stable supply of crude rather than the stated reason of removing Saddam. How does a strategy of buying up the crude compare to waging war?
Perhaps, after the OPEC shortages of the 70’s, the US government pursued a policy of buying large quantities of crude on the open market. We stop pumping crude inside the US. The market price of crude is higher, certainly, but we also have a stockpile of crude to cushion supply disruptions.
Fast forward 30 or 40 years to the present. Now, the US has a massive amount of stockpiled crude, and also plenty of crude oil in the ground. Are we better off?
Assumptions: the US doesn’t fight in Gulf War 1 nor Iraq. The government has a higher debt from buying up the crude over the years, but also owns a large stockpile of crude oil.
Where would all this crude oil be stored? The Strategic Oil Reserve inventory capacity is only 90 to 118 days, and that includes the Reserve and private stocks.
Considering the legislation to create the Reserve dates from 1975, and we have yet to fill the Reserve, where are we going to get additional storage capacity? After 31 years we haven’t even met the requirements for one billion barrels stored.
It’s no more useful, although it is more ethical and less destructive. Iraq wanted to sell it’s crude, as do the other people who have it; as was pointed out before the war, what else are they going to do ? Drink it ?
PNAC and the neocons did want to deny China or any other non-American power the oil, but buying it wouldn’t achieve that goal, so it wouldn’t keep them from going to war, given the chance. Nor would buying the oil affect other war goals, like building those huge bases, or using Iraq as a starting point for the conquest of Iran and Syria. Nor would it eliminate Saddam, or hand over huge sums of money to Haliburton, or let us warp their laws into the Republican’s image.