By Jay R. MandleW. Bradford Wiley Professor of Economics,
Prepared for Delivery at
No one has yet provided evidence that
Within a month, however, this inattention to
The explanation for this delay by those close to the Bush Administration is that it took that long for officials to realize that the public mood had moved in a direction favorable to the neoconservative’s agenda of overthrowing Saddam’s Hussein dictatorship. A person described as a “senior official” told Nicholas Lemann that “the reason September 11th appears to have been a ‘transformative moment’…is not so much that it revealed the existence of a threat of which officials had previously been unaware, as that it drastically reduced the American public’s usual resistance to American military involvement overseas, at least for a while.”
While this obviously has the ring of truth, the problem that still needs to be explained is what Kenneth M. Pollack describes as the “almost obsessive fixation on getting rid of Saddam’s regime” by those close to Wolfowitz. Pollack a former CIA analyst who supports an invasion of
What could account for such an exaggerated view of the importance of the Saddam regime?
There is one other aspect of the neo-conservatives’ position with regard to
In an article I published last November, I speculated that concern about the reliability of Saudi Arabian petroleum supplies was a motivating factor in the shift to a strategy of overthrowing the Iraqi government. It is now clear that about a month after the terrorist attacks officials had begun to recognize that Saudi Arabia was deeply implicated in the attacks and that that recognition had raised anxieties concerning the reliability of the flow of petroleum from the region. Some of the language used in the discussions was quite dramatic. A report received by the Defense Policy Board warned “the Saudis are active at every level of the terror chains, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot soldier, from ideologist to cheer leader” and that country was “the kernel of evil, the prime mover and the most dangerous opponent.” Another member of the Defense Policy Board, R. James Woolsey, bracketed Saudi Arabia with Iraq and Iran as countries “that have chosen to be at war with us.” Woolsey in fact approvingly quoted an oil industry authority as saying that in its role as “swing producer” in the petroleum market,
If indeed petroleum insecurity is at issue, and in particular there is anxiety over Saudi Arabia’s future role in the petroleum market, then Jonathan Rauch’ reformulation of what George W. Bush’s actually said in the fiscal 2003 budget makes good sense. Rauch agrees that the President should have called for “bold action” (as he did) in response to the deaths that occurred in
The irony in the failure of the Bush Administration to move to reduce our dependence on
The President has moved on the first two of these recommendations, but neither of the latter two appear anywhere on the administration’s agenda. In this omission, of course, there is no surprise. The current administration is very heavily populated by individuals whose business and professional ties to the petroleum and energy industries are strong. Both the President and the Vice President share such ties. Perhaps not coincidentally, the top 100 officials in the administration had most of their financial holding in this sector as well. The thought that energy policy should involve a reduced reliance on petroleum would simply be unthinkable for most of them. And if that is not enough, there is the fact that the oil and gas sector contributed $1.9 million to the 1999-2000 Bush election effort, a level higher than the industry contributed to any federal candidate during the last decade and certainly a level sufficiently high to ensure that petroleum would be accorded a protected status in the Administration’s policies. Woolsey’s suggestions, even though offered by a consummate insider, and not a tree hugging environmentalist, are beyond their ability to consider seriously.
But of course the threat that oil import dependency represents to United States security is not a recent discovery. Thirty years ago, OPEC, lead by Saudi Arabia, withheld supply, and in doing so severely damaged the American economy and that of most of the rest of the countries of the world as well. Yet here we are today faced with a situation in which domestic production is in decline, consumption continues to increase, but we have done little or nothing to reduce the vulnerability associated with the resulting increased petroleum import dependency. Since 1980, the domestic production of crude oil has declined by about a third, while imports have increased by over 70 percent. The upshot is that in 2000 we are more dependent on oil imports than ever. We imported 3.3 billion barrels of crude oil compared to a domestic level of production of 2.1 billion barrels. Just as important as the fact that we import well over half of our petroleum is of course its source. The Middle East provides almost a quarter of the total imports and Saudi Arabia alone is the second only to Canada as our largest supplier.
Until very recently, the Administration was all but totally complacent concerning the risks associated with this level of petroleum imports. In its National Energy Policy, issued in May 2001, it matter of factly noted that Saudi Arabia had been “a linchpin of supply reliability to world market” and was smugly content to report that that country has provided “effective assurances that it will use its capacity to mitigate the impact of oil supply disruptions in any region.” In short, as late as the Spring of 2001, the Administration recognized no problems with our dependency on Saudi Arabia for oil. As we have seen, that attitude changed very suddenly soon thereafter.
The National Energy Report did agree that because its possessed huge petroleum reserves, “this region [the Middle East] will remain vital to U.S. interests.” No doubt; that precisely is the point. Despite the Administration’s refusal to publicly acknowledge that its drive to war is concerned with petroleum, the United States’ dependency on oil imports means that it is all but certain that energy is a principle source of its preoccupation with Iraq. Boiled down to its essence, we are asked to go to war with Iraq because in the years since the Arab oil boycott we have failed to devise an energy policy that reduces our reliance on Middle East, particularly Saudi oil. With the latter now considered problematic, we need Iraq as an assured source of supply.
The failed energy policy that now drives us to war represents a long-term failure, one rooted in the structure of American politics. Over a thirty-year period the security of the nation has been neglected. We could have and should have adopted a set of policies to reduce our dependency on petroleum, but we did not. We continued to rely on petroleum when we should have adjusted to changed circumstances by both greatly increasing our energy efficiency and developing alternative domestic renewable energy supplies. Vested interests prevailed when instead innovation should have been the focus of attention.
The inability to adapt and adjust, exemplified but not confined to our continued dependence on petroleum serves the country poorly. But just such an rigidity is all but inevitable in a political system in which private wealth provides the funding for its functioning. The wealthy have an interest in the preservation of the sources of their wealth. And so, just as it is hard to expect Bush Administration officials rooted in petroleum to adopt a program to reduce oil’s role in the economy, it is hard to expect a political system, which receives massive funding from the gasoline-dependent automobile industry and other petroleum using energy sectors to be responsive to the need to move beyond petroleum.
By any definition, the role of oil and gas and transportation in funding the American political system has been massive. According to The Center for Responsive Politics, contributions from individuals connected to the oil and gas sectors, from that industry’s Political Action Committees, and from soft money contributions from individuals and groups connected to them totaled no less than $148,036,809 over the period between 1990 and 2002. The largely gasoline and petroleum-based transportation sector contributed even more: $228,338,987. These are huge numbers, amounts that mean that even though the Democrats received less than one-third of the total from these industries, it remains the case that they too, like the Republican Party, is heavily dependent on these industries and the people who work in or represent them. In contrast, the sources of potential energy innovation, not to mention environmentalists, could not begin to match the dominant industries. Indeed, the Center for Responsive Politics uses the word “microscopic” when comparing the funding that came from the “alternative energy production and services” sector.
With this the case, there was effectively a one-party system with regard to energy. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, worried about funding their re-election campaigns, could not have done otherwise than stick with the status quo rather than vote to fund and undertake major new energy initiatives. The problem was systemic. Petroleum had to be favored because petroleum paid the bills involved in getting re-elected. But because that was so, the country was ill served. To be sure the special interests got their way: oil and gasoline remain dominant. But that dominance means that the well being of the country is precarious. The bitter irony is that those who now point out that this war is unnecessary and could have been avoided with a more balanced energy policy are called unpatriotic, whereas those who really have sold out the national interest are the ones who have bought petroleum’s protection in the political system with petroleum wealth.
Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator and all who value liberty and democracy have an interest in his removal from power. I do not rule out the possibility that his removal will require external assistance. Saddam’s crimes are severe enough that it would be reasonable for external powers to respond to requests for help from Iraq opposition groups. But such an alliance is not at all what the Bush Administration has in mind. Securing petroleum not democracy is the real object of American policy. And, in turn, the subversion of our democracy by the political influence of wealth is the source of that policy. The cause of global democracy in short awaits a deepening of domestic democracy.
These data appear at The Center for Responsive Politics web site “Industry Totals, Oil and Gas Long-Term Contribution Trends and Transportation Long-Term Contribution Trends.” The quote concerning Alternative Energy Production and Services appears in “A Money in Politics Backgrounder on the Energy Industry,” at the same site: http://www.opensecrets.org.