Cartoon 728: By Design

A sharp swing toward big oil took place with the Presidential election of 2000. The top two Administration positions were held by “oilmen”. They threw open the doors for the oil industry. The price at the pump surpassed the $2.00 ceiling and continued upward beyond $3.00 dollars. Exxon Mobile reached the highest corporate profits in history. The vice president, Dick Cheney, convened his very secret “Energy Taskforce”. Even today we do not know what the taskforce decided.

A good guest is that the Taskforce recommended the obvious. America needed to acquire a secure large source of oil under its control. Alliances were rejected. It left too much control with the indigenous government. I imagine the proposed solution was to acquire an oil rich nation. That translated into a Middle Eastern nation, since most of the top know oil rich nations are in the Middle East. They were constrained in their choice by the takeover of a middle Eastern nation must not cause an international out cry and backlash. Through the process of elimination they decided on Iraq. Iran was a close second. But the risk of achieving a successful quick takeover was much higher. Also Iranian domestic resistance to occupation would be extremely high. Iraq was no mystery. The Intelligence Agencies had realms of data on Iraq.

The Administration guided by Dick Cheney painted Iraq as an immediate threat to world security. Next the Administration had to craft the invasion in such a manner it would not have to share the control over the oil with war partners. All went according to plan. They got an international mandate for the invasion from the United Nations and they captured the nation with a military action in short order.

The insurgency and out cries from Allies caused the absolute control of the oil to slip through the Administration’s fingers. The Administration found itself in the position of needing to extricate itself from Iraq for American domestic political reasons. The Administration set up a government “democratically” elected. The Administration could not inaugurate a new democracy in Iraq and not have that government have some control over its resources. The new government, to America’s chagrin, had open bidding on oil contracts. American companies had expected a privileged position and very lucrative contracts. They acted as if this would be the case with “lukewarm” participation and loss out to competitors. The first oil plan of acquiring a large foreign oil supply failed.

The next best option possibly recommended by the energy Taskforce, was to open up domestic drilling. The oil companies had been barred from major drilling in nature reserves and coastlines because of the potential environmental damage. In 2009 the oil industry waged a successful political campaign to open up domestic oil drilling. The initiative was working well. Environmentist were constantly losing ground and restrictions were evaporating. Whole new areas of opportunity were opened up. 

A few weeks ago the BP disaster occurred in the Gulf. The pendulum is now swinging back in the other direction. Greater restrictions and more escrow funds are in the works. The Energy Taskforce’s second recommendation will likely be a failure if sentiments continue in their current direction.

It is anyone’s guest what might have been the Energy Taskforce’s third recommendation.