Is this analysis of current Geopolitics acurate?

Great Debates
1

First of all, I am an American. I am pround of my country for many things, but am a bit confused on how to feel about the current situation. Considering myself neither a liberal nor a conservative, I make every attempt to be informed and to educate myself as much as possible. The current issues on the geopolitical front are fascinating and disturbing at the same time. I’d like to ask all the Dopers here if my interpretation of the geopolitical situation is accurate, or more to the point, if there are any glaring errors. I am not making any moral judgements, not in favor nor against any particular country or diplomatic stance. I won’t provide any cites, as my opinions come from a variety of sources, mostly American popular media…CNBC, the Economist, the New York Times…

To the point:

I believe, first of all, that all the diplomatic language we hear from the UN is a cover for the real issues. I see the current strife as a disintegration of the traditional western alliance. With the fall of the Soviet Nation and the Warsaw Pact, there is no longer the glue to bind the western alliance together. Nations are falling back to the old-school traditional conflict between nation states.

Of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council, I attribute the following motives to each:

United States

The US has multiple reasons for the push to invade Iraq. The argument that Irag is a threat to the US directly or has ties to Al Qaeda seems to ring hollow. Granted, these arguments might attribute a small amount to the US’ decision-making process, but in reality I believe this is about Oil. Saudi Arabia, our largest ‘ally’ in the region, is headed by a royal family that is loathed by the Saudi public. The King, King Saud (?), is aging, and I believe the fear that his death will cause instability within our ally forces the US to look for other possible reliable sources of oil. Ala Iraq - the US goes in, puts in a goverment that will provide oil at market prices for the foreseeable future. Any benefits to the Iraqi people, through democracy or simply a less oppresive regime, are seen as positive and a political cover but in the end are not the goal.

France

In the same way the United States’ diplomatic language doesn’t fit its real motives, the same is true for France. France, in my estimation, has two real motives. First, it is seeking to establish itself as the primary voice of the EU at the expense of Britian, while also positioning the EU as a counterbalance to US power. Second, France has a personal interest in not seeing the US taking over Iraq. France has a strong business relationship with Iraq and its national oil company, TotalfinaElf, has large contracts with Iraq and stands to have even larger contracts should France manage to prevent a US invasion. There is also the possibility France has been selling items to Iraq in violation of the UN sanctions and fears discovery, although I am not convinced of this. In the end, France doesn’t care about Iraq or prevention of war, it is just acting out in its best interests. France has every right to do so, but I believe its assumption of the moral high ground is repulsive.

Russia

Russia has simpler motives. It, similar to France, has business connections with Iraq and stands to make out well should a US invasion be prevented. It would also like to prevent the US occupying and then basing US troops within Iraq. That said, it values its relationship with the US very highly and would not be making a stand without France taking the lead and most of the heat from the US.

China

China doesn’t want to be overly involved. If France is willing to take the lead and heat (as per Russia), China is happy to reign in US power and prevent the US from occupying the country with the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world. But, similar to Russia, China feels its economic development is closely tied to the US and wouldn’t be making this stand w/o France.

Britian

Britian’s motivation are the least clear to me. Britian and the US have a special relationship. They share history, language, and often common geopolitical interests. The alliance has been unquestioning and Britian stands to benefit if the US succeeds. Not only will British Petroleum stand to gain, if the US invades Iraq and finds proof of WMDs and possibly of France breaking UN sanctions, Britian stands to gain immense influence within the EU and could become the EU’s primary voice. In the end, the US - UK are about as close as allies as countries can be on a geopolitical stage, although in this instance there is great risk for Tony Blair and the UK.
Anyways…that is my interpretation of world events. What do you think? Any factual errors? Difference of opinion?

2

The analysis of the US motives are wrong. If the US wanted Iraq’s oil there is a very simple and easy way to get it, buy it. There is no reason to invade a country to get a commodity they would happily sell you. If Saddam hates America so much he decided not to sell us the oil then he would have to sell it to someone else. Since oil is an international commodity whoever he sold it to would expand the total of oil for sale which would reduce the price to that which the US would have purchased it anyway. Also if the US wanted oil fields we had a great chance to seize some of Iraq’s fields at the end of the Gulf War. The US has a large military presence in Saudi, Kuwait and Quatar. If the US decided it wanted oil in could take over any of these countries very easily.

3

True…but the US has the opportunity to obtain that oil with at least a cover of legitimacy. It doesn’t want future oil shipments to be held ‘hostage’ by a hostile Iraqi government. Any future invasion, for no reason other than for oil, would be even more destabilizing than the current planned invasion. The idea of disarming Saddam of WMDs is also part of the equation, just not as large as it is made out to be in the US’ diplomatic language.

4

Well, I guess I’ll keep on posting these links, as they continue to be relevant in explaining how US motives concerning Middle East oil involve more than just US oil needs.

Oilpolitik

The Carter Doctrine

The Bush Gambit (National Security Strategy)

Control of the Persian Gulf region -assured by a military occupation of Iraq- not only allows prompt intervention in Saudi Arabia if and when necessary, but also gives the controller the enviable ability to strategically squeeze countries dependent on the oil produced in the region. It’s not about how much oil we get from Iraq; it’s about how much oil the world gets from the region.

While I would still be opposed to an invasion if the Bush administration were to justify it with the above reasoning, I feel it’s closer to the truth than the reasons they’ve so far shared.

5

I agree with Alaskan_in_NYC that virtually every country involved has ulterior motives for it’s political stances, but always justifies them with things that sound good to the people. I agree also the oil is one of the big motives for the U.S. Our companies will be in a much more favorable position if Iraq is controlled by our puppet than by Saddam who is an enemy. However, we should not forget all the other illegitimate motives the Bush administration has:

War distracts from a bad economy and corporate scandals.

Saddam was presumably behind an assassination attempt against his father.

He is embarrassed that his father didn’t take Iraq when he had the chance.

Conservatives, especially Texans, are very into being the tough guy who shows other people who’s boss.

Wartime presidents inevitably get a big surge of “patriotic” support especially when the shooting first starts. This makes it easy for him to push lots of his policies through congress.

The arms industry, a Republican special interest, makes a ton of money.

6

The US currently gets no oil from Iraq but is going to war to prevent future oil shipments from being held up? That is ridiculous. Invading Iraq to get oil is like doing a smash and grab at a grocery store to get milk. The US could get all the oil from Iraq it wanted just by ending the sanctions and buying it.

War is not distracting from a bad economy, uncertainty about the war is one of the reasons the economy is still sluggish. It is one of the reasons the price of oil is so high, which is a huge drag on the economy. The big name corporate scandals took place under the previous administration and are mostly over now.
Bush is risking his entire presidency on the Iraqi invasion. If it goes badly he stands little chance of reelection and if it goes well it could still be 1992 all over again.
The real reasons are twofold:

  1. Bush is not willing to risk a nuclear armed, bellicose Iraq.
  2. It is the second step in his plan to pacify the Middle East to prevent anymore terrorist attacks on the US.
7

The US gets about 800,000 barrels of crude oil per day which originates from Iraq, through middlemen purchasing oil as part of the US supervised food for oil program. That’s about 9% of our imports.

Additionally, and as I said before, control of the world’s most important oil producing region by any other world power is something we should and do jealously guard against. Unfortunately, the Bush administrations seems determined to change our policy from guarding the region from outside to one of protecting our interests from the inside.

8

If control of Iraqi oil is the real motive behind out impending invasion, then why has a central goal of the administration’s energy plan been to expand oil exploration at home so as to reduce reliance on oil imports? Is that whole ANWR thing just a cover for the war, then?

Sorry, but puddleglum nailed it. We don’t want Iraq to have the means to blackmail the world, and we want to instill democracy in Iraq as a means of destabilizing the dictatorships in the region, with the loftier goal of eliminating terrorism. Oil factors into the argument to the extent that it’s something else that can be lumped in the “pro” column, as is the elimination of suffering for the Iraqi people.

And to clear up Alaskan’s confusion, Britain (or rather, Tony Blair) is siding with us because he thinks that Bush is onto something here. Get rid of a potential global menace? Unseat the oppressive regimes in the Middle East? Maybe even ultimately squash terrorism at its source? Sounds like a good idea. Lofty goal, sure, but the best ones usually are. A lot of people used to think that running up our military in an attempt to bankrupt the USSR and free Eastern Europe was a bad idea, too.
Jeff

9

puddleglum: Without a doubt, much of the corporate cheating took place under the previous administration, but the cheating was done by Republican special interests who supported Bush. It was clearly the Bush administration, not Clinton, that was taking heat over it, so it was something Bush didn’t want in the news, especially just before the mid-term elections. The bad economy was also a potential mid-term election issue, and Bush’s announcement that we would attack Iraq (sometime in September, I think) was quite an effective distraction at that time.

I disagree with your “real reasons”.

Iraq has made no perceptable progress in developing nuclear weapons in the last 12 years, and Bush has not been able to present any evidence to the contrary. Saddam has been and still is an enemy of bin Laden, and Bush has not been able to present any evidence to the contrary. Bush (like every other politician) knows, however, that people are always very vulnerable to scare tactics, and the image of bin Laden with nukes worked very well into frightening the American public into backing him.

The idea of controlling the Middle East is a possible motive, but it seems to me he would have to be planning to invade Egypt and Saudi Arabia to have much effect, since these are where the 9/11 hijackers and most of the money came from.

10

[list=A][li]Are you seriously proposing that reducing our dependency on OPEC countries by taking control of distributive pathways for oil is incompatible with reducing dependency by expanding oil production at home?[]You’ve begged the question by implying that the administration has no motive byond reducing reliance on imports for its policy of expansion of domestic oil exploration.[]You, like puddleglum, are ignoring the importance of Iraqi oil to countries other than the US. I wonder why?[/list][/li]

So, are you proposing that we invade Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait and Pakistan also? How about Korea, 'cause of that “global menace” thing? And let’s not forget Indonesia, a hotbed source of terrorism.

Remember, can’t squash terrorism without invasions!

11

*Originally posted by xenophon41 *

I think this statement sums it up nicely - it’s not about oil, it’s about control. Or more corretly, power.

Granted, from a geopolitical perspective, I’m not necesarily opposed to the US trying to achieved that objective (that is, control of the oil in the Middle East). After all, that what nation-states do - try to achieve as much control/power relative to other nation-states. What I have problems with is our current administrations’ rather “ham-fisted” approach in achieving this objective.

12

I’m honestly getting to the point that I find it reassuring to think that maybe, just maybe, the US administration has a coherent motivation. Or one of more depth and strategy than seems apparent on the surface.

13

xenophon41 is doing just fine here, but I wanted to add that one reason simply lifting the embargo and buying oil from Saddam isn’t very attractive is because those same dollars will then be used against US interests. Buying a commodity with hard currency from an enemy isn’t great foreign policy.

14

Well, I would respectfully suggest that to us non American Dopers that your analysis, whilst having lots of merit going for it, is ALSO a somewhat insular analysis - in so far as it only seems to be concerned with things which are currently getting lots of news coverage in the American media.

In isolation, this isn’t a bad thing per se, but there’s something I would like to offer you to consider Alaskan - namely this… there’s a perception in many regions around the world these days - particularly in the Muslim world extending from Arabia thru the sub continent down to South East Asia - that the USA, and it’s media in particular, are wholly obsessed with an overblown sense of self importance - and that further, unless a news story is worthy of making it on American Prime Time news, it isn’t newsworthy at all…

So here’s the rub… such a perception is wrong - obviously. Further it’s a distortion of the truth because American broadsheet newspapers remain incredibly voluminous and unbiased sources of world news coverage - nonetheless, the perception I just noted above is a palpable one, and it’s one which seems to be gaining momentum, too.

Every week, I hear more and more and more anti-American rhetoric in South East Asia - particularly from the muslim countries in the region. And the arguements are highly refined and intelligent arguements too. Issues such as unfair trading practices, and improper usage of import tarriffs etc rule the airwaves.

My gut feeling is this - there’s quite a groundswell around the world at the moment that the USA is teetering on becoming an all-conquering utterly self-obsessed imperial power with little concern for graciousness or global etiquette. It’s a position which I don’t agree with, but the fact remains that it’s a position which is striking an amazingly resonant chord the world over - and as such - I would urge every one of my American friends to please, take heed of this. It’s going to bite you in the bum… trust me.

Alaskan - obviously you alone can’t change what stories the prime time US TV News chooses to screen - however, you’re doing the next best thing. You’re coming onto this magnificent postboard and allowing Dopers outside of the USA to give you their insights or “takes” on things. I hope I wasn’t too harsh in my assessment there. No hard feelings, honestly.

Your Aussie friend, Boo Boo Foo. :smiley:

15

From your mouth [er… fingers] to Washington DC’s ears [eyes… whatever]. (Thanks, by the way, on behalf of that portion of Americans who place a high value on criticism from friends.)

16

That’s spot on, Boo Boo Foo. Good observation

17

Let me just say that I don’t believe the primary reason for the Bush policy is oil though it’s could be a secondary reason. However I find it amusing how hawks get all indignant about this line of argument when applied to the US while at the same time applying it to France.

France has even less reason to oppose the war for oil not least because as a net oil importer (about 2 million barrels per day) it will benefit if the war is successful and there is a long term increase Iraqi oil which reduces world prices. This outweighs the limited importance of the famous “contracts” which are unlikely to be translated into much actual production let alone profits for French companies.

As for what the real motivation is it’s important not to overestimate the degree of rationality of the Bush administration. IMO the war is not being driven by a rational calculation of America’s national interest but largely by a pie-in-the-sky ideological fantasy of the neo-con “intellectuals” within the GOP who have been pushing for a war against Iraq for more than a decade. 9-11 was just a convenient pretext since it allowed them to push all sorts of dubious linkages between Iraq and al-Quaeda. This is not to say that there aren’t serious people who support the war for serious reasons but the above is a good summary description of the strongest supporters of the war in the administration itself who appear to be driving Iraq policy.

18

Heh Heh. Well xenophon41 - I wouldn’t have called it criticism exactly. More like “just for your reference, something you guys might be interested in…” - if you know what I mean. :wink:

19

I just wanted to add that if the Bush administration had some kind of policy favoring seizing and controlling oil reserves just for the sake of controlling oil reserves (and benefitting oil cronies), US troops would have been in Caracas about six months ago. There is plenty of pretext for “stabilizing” Venezuala and plenty of precedent for real unilateral behavior by the US in the Western Hemisphere.

I think xenophon’s points about oil power in the Gulf region are much closer to the mark. I do not think it is coincidental that the Pentagon has had briefings on the boiling cauldrons in Saudi Arabia.

20

"There is plenty of pretext for “stabilizing” Venezuala and plenty of precedent for real unilateral behavior by the US in the Western Hemisphere. "

Pardon me, but hardly. There is barely sufficient pretext–indeed manifestly insufficient pretext–for this conduct in Iraq where, among other canned reasons, the Bush administration argues a) Saddam Hussein’s tyranny and inhumanity; b) his alleged “partnership” with Al Qaeda; c) his record of invading neighbors; d) his possession of WMD. None of these arguments can made in the case of Venezuela.

(That doesn’t, btw, mean that I’m convinced that the only reason behind the curren US policy with respect to Iraq is oil. I think it’s more multi-dimensional than that.)