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Crude for Thought: Friendly Spying, Iran and Oil
The New Republic's Peter Scoblic has an interesting op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, arguing that while allies spying on each other is common, it is not harmless:
Though friendly spying is pervasive, the severity of the problem is less a function of frequency than of consequence. It matters less, for example, if France uncovers a trade secret than if Al Qaeda learns our military plans in Afghanistan. But, in measuring the damage done, one can't write off the loss of secrets as unimportant simply because they were taken by a friend. Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker reported in 1999 that the Israelis passed much of the information they got from Pollard — possibly including U.S. nuclear war plans — to the Soviets. It's an extreme case, but in espionage it's wise to remember that, although the enemy of my enemy may be my friend, the friend of my friend may also be my enemy.
Go read.
Meantime, Matt Yglesias has a new article out arguing that the Franklin case speaks to the larger disarray of the Bush Adminisration's Iran policy:
Those divisions are longstanding, going back at least to the spring of 2001 when the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) was soon set to expire. Reflecting the inordinate influence of oil companies who stood to benefit financially from a relaxation of sanctions as well as the generally realist inclinations of National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, the Bush administration was inclined to let the law lapse.
Israel's friends in the Congress, however, felt otherwise and soon began organizing support for a bill to extend ILSA, thus strengthening the hand of the minority faction of Iran hawks -- centered, as ever, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Vice President -- inside the administration. Faced with the prospect of expending political capital on an issue that would leave him vulnerable to charges of being soft on terrorism . . .the president flip-flopped, signaled support for ILSA extension, and it passed overwhelmingly in both houses.
On the issue of how oil prices affect the reluctance of US allies to ever get behind any sort of oil embargo on Iran, the Washington Post's Robin Wright and Justin Blum had an important and overlooked article over the weekend:
The realities of today's oil market, however, make any type of embargo unlikely, if not impossible, say oil analysts.
An international embargo on Iranian oil could jack up the price of oil from the current price, now approaching $50 a barrel, to about $80 per barrel, said Robert E. Ebel, chairman of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In prices adjusted for inflation, that would be higher than when oil prices peaked in 1981.
Worldwide oil production is near capacity and demand has been increasing, especially in China and India, Ebel said. "The Security Council would not accept an oil embargo on Iran, particularly when it's unlikely Iraqi oil will come on the market in a measurable way anytime soon," added Ray Takeyh, a Council on Foreign Relations specialist on Iran.
Iran produces an average of 3.9 million barrels of crude oil a day, about 5 percent of world production, the Energy Department said. It exports about 2.6 million barrels per day. Even trying to ban foreign oil companies' investments in Iran would drive up prices, analysts said.
[The WSJ reports, meanwhile, that a surge in oil prices is likely here to stay.] The implications of multilateral diplomacy having no effective economic levers to influence Iran's decision to slow its nuclear program are grave. But I think that is where we are fast headed.
[Meantime, why is the Bush administration apparently tolerating North Korea getting nuclear weapons, while it may not Iran? Go see Scoblic's new piece on "Bush vs. Bush on North Korea," here.]
Posted by Laura at September 28, 2004 09:18 AM
Condoleeza Rice was also a member of the Chevron board of directors prior to her White House appointment. Chevron had been advocating the dropping of unilateral US sanctions on Iran. Witness this July, 2000 speech by Chevron Vice Chairman Richard H. Matzke to the Iranian Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals Forum:
http://www.chevrontexaco.com/news/archive/chevron_speech/2000/2000-07-12.asp
The speech is even available in Farsi at Chevron's site.
Posted by: Dan Kervick at September 28, 2004 09:42 AMLaura -- Speaking of Franklin, etc., when are you and Josh Marshall & co. going to go public with what you know about the Niger forgeries? Now that CBS has dropped the ball, I'd like to know I can count on SOMEONE to get the story out BEFORE the election, for God's sake.
Thank you.
Posted by: farmgirl at September 28, 2004 09:56 AMPollad just had the chutzpah to write a letter to President Bush stating that "disengagement" is tantamount to "expelling Jews" and "will not be forgiven".
Posted by: Mark at September 28, 2004 10:35 AMRegarding crude futures, one can barely imagine the almost infinite incentive that $80/barrell crude would give to Islamic fundamentalists - and here I mean both the Saudi Royal Family (i.e. their present and future ability to dictate policy) and fronts like al-Qaeda. Qaeda would surely make an all out effort to disrupt Saudi production. Meanwhile the "global" economy goes into full depression. Nothing should further compel Iran to proceed apace with its nuclear energy production programs. Get real folks. Israel would suffer mightily in a global depression - whereas the oil producing powers, notably S.A. would prosper like never before. At least this is one conceivable scenario.
Even an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities at this time, by the U.S. or Israel, is going to push crude prices up at least another ten dollars - punishing the American middle class yet again for dubious purposes.
Posted by: comenius at September 28, 2004 10:50 AMone can barely imagine the almost infinite incentive that $80/barrell crude would give to Islamic fundamentalists. . .
. . . which is why I bought a VW Jetta diesel 6 months ago. 46 mpg on diesel.
However, I don't think that it would exclusively benefit the Saudi Royals, (and the fundamentalists/terrorists they covertly support, for this very purpose). There's a lot of Texans who are deeply invested in oil and oil production, and higher oil prices mean big $$ for them in the short term.
Where they've screwed up, of course, is that like in the late 1970's, the price of oil is not spiking in response, the price of oil is in a sustained climb. The result of a spike is a ding in your pocketbook, and cha-ching for "them". The result of a sustained climb is serious investment in alternatives, which has a response on the demand side. What happened in the early 1980's is that in response to the high demand, everyone scrambled like mad to invest in ramping production, which resulted in a glut, which absolutely FUCKED them. They won't make that same mistake twice, but a drop in demand due to alternative technologies coming on line WILL fuck them. And I welcome that.
Posted by: Osama_Been_Forgotten at September 28, 2004 02:07 PM"Laura -- Speaking of Franklin, etc., when are you and Josh Marshall & co. going to go public with what you know about the Niger forgeries? Now that CBS has dropped the ball, I'd like to know I can count on SOMEONE to get the story out BEFORE the election, for God's sake."
I second that motion just so that I might get to read more comical stories about Rocco Martino, "the BIG" spy.
When long term oil prices reach $33 to $35 per barrel, alternatives to oil for transportation fuels become commercially feasible. Methanol (produced from OTEC and coal) is an example of a gasoline alternative that can be mass produced without oil or natural gas at those long term price levels. There are other approaches as well that work at these price levels.
When long term oil prices were in the $20s, they were not feasible for large scale commercial production, but things have changed, and our thinking about them needs to change as well.
What is needed is a government commitment to support the commercial development of these alternatives to oil. There are both national security and macroeconomic reasons to do so, and the sooner we get moving the sooner we will lessen our exposure to energy resources which are increasingly slipping out of our control.
Posted by: Brad at September 28, 2004 02:23 PMLaura,
If you know about Niger forgeries, what could be a bigger story? And what could be a bigger obligation than that the American public know who was trying to manipulate the US into war in Iraq? This election is truly a referendum on Bush's war in Iraq, and he is doing everything to hide the truth. Let's go. Work to be done.
Doppler
Laura, if you need further encouragement to go with the Niger story now, read Daniel Ellsberg in the NY Times today.
Posted by: JL at September 28, 2004 03:27 PM"Even an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities at this time, by the U.S. or Israel, is going to push crude prices up at least another ten dollars - punishing the American middle class yet again for dubious purposes."
If we attack Iran -- what's to keep them from completely shutting off the pumps? It could be at least as bad as sanctions. We used up our "invade a member of OPEC free card" in Iraq and we are not going to get another one -- not for Iran and not even for soon to be OPEC member Sudan.
Face it. We're crack addicted whores and Iran and SA are our pimps.
Our hands are tied militarily and economically with Iran. We might as well welcome them to the nuclear age and pretend like we think it is a good idea. Brinkmanship in the age of tight oil supplies is a recipe for a global depression.
As for Nort Korea. They have a loaded gun aimed at Soul and we don't know where most of their nuclear facilities are. Satellite photos of North Korea look like aerial photographs of prairie dog towns. Most of the underground burrowing is just to fool us. They are master of the "unhinged and unpredictable dictator" diplomacy. Israel keeps its neighbors in line in much the same way -- threatening extreme measures for small things. Flying fighter jets over Saudi oil fields for proposing Palestinian peace plans. Threatening military action against Lebanese irrigation projects.
Technological solutions are at least 5 to 10 years out. Even where the technology exists today -- it would take that long to build the infrastructure. Natural gas pipelines to link Alaska and Mexico to our network, accellerated tar sand exploitation, deep petroleum reserves, etc. Energy is never going to be cheap again and none of the alternatives to petroleum are even half as convenient to transport, refine, or utilize.
Any administration that is not massively investing in conservation, efficiency, and natural gas or other alternatives fuels are short sighted boobs who are destroying our country and who need to get sent back to Crawford Texas.
Posted by: nwoknu snwoknu at September 28, 2004 04:12 PMLaura:
It appears that the Niger forgeries+ the include memo on Iran nuclear intentions is just a human vagary. Or it is just the case of American short memory spam of attention? Those who forged those documents are pretty much the ones who outed Valery Palme...? The Niger yellow cake forgery is a Watergate in a global scale. So what do you wait?