Oil crisis exercise bares US ‘impotence’

[Dover]

Saturday, November 03, 2007


Oil crisis exercise bares US ‘impotence’

By Paul Handley, Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON: It’s August 2009, oil prices have topped $150 a barrel and a secret uranium plant has been detected in Iran.

Tehran and Caracas are slashing oil exports by 700,000 barrels to punish the West for sanctions, and the US military is ready to move its entire Pacific fleet into the Middle East to counter threats.

It may be tomorrow’s headlines, but on Thursday a high-powered panel of Washington insiders acting as the US president’s national security council found they would face almost impossible choices and be powerless in such a case, baring the United States’ growing inability to lead in global crises.

“In this kind of hostile environment would have the upper hand,” said Gene Sperling, former president Bill Clinton’s national economic adviser, who played the treasury secretary in the exercise.

It “would make us look impotent,” he added.

“This scenario could start tomorrow,” said retired general John Abizaid, the former US Central Command chief.

Put on by the Securing America’s Future Energy and the Bipartisan Policy Center, the unscripted one-day simulation sought to emphasize the danger of the extremely narrow gap between world oil production capacity and demand, and the heavy US dependence on oil imports.

But it exposed the strained US military’s incapacity to project its power over multiple regions, and the ability of even small countries to provoke a world political and economic crisis.
....> cont'd

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/nov/03/yehey/opinion/20071103opi7.html

[jody]

1. War resources better spent on oil alternatives

A nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report says Bush's war in Iraq could cost $2.4 trillion over 10 years. Unfortunately, that does not include the human suffering of those who lost loved ones or veterans and their families who suffer daily from war injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder. That might add several trillion dollars to the CBO estimate.

Recently Alan Greenspan said the prime motive for Bush's war in Iraq was oil. That's conventional wisdom among thinking Americans since we now know the administration's claim that Iraq had WMD was a lie to justify a preemptive war against innocent people.

The two realizations prompt a simple question. Would the world be better off if the United States had spent $2.4 trillion over the next decade on developing alternative sources of energy rather than on Bush's war for oil?

A do-nothing, wimpy Congress, controlled first by Republicans and now Democrats, needs to answer that simple question before they give Bush a green light to attack Iran. Another war for oil could add several trillion dollars to the CBO estimate of $2.4 trillion.

[lostnotforgotten]

2. Scenarios Like This Are Regularly Discussed At WWW.TheOilDrum.Com

www.theoildrum.com

[profgoose]

3. yes, they, erm, we are...

...and thanks for the plug. We're doing what we can. Thanks for your support.

[amandabeech]

4. I plug theoildrum whenever I can, prof.

I'm going over there now for my weekly dose.

[profgoose]

5. only weekly?!?

heh. just kidding. :)

(and thank you for the support...)

[amandabeech]

11. I'd be there every day, if I had the time.

I do post very occasionally over there under a different name.

My idea for stringing HVDC from N. Dakota to a complex of pumped storage units on Lake Superior near Duluth got picked up by someone with much more knowledge. I was thrilled.

[lostnotforgotten]

6. Hi Professor - Good To See You Here - I Plug TheOilDrum Daily

Great site - I read it daily - keep up the good work!

[Islander Expat]

7. Fuel supply is Americas Achilles heel ....

Watch what happens when the gas stations start to close there.

Get out now I would recommend.

[EVDebs]

8. The US uses the food weapon

The Tactics of Using Food as a Weapon.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article30056.html

I remember when the USSR had to beg the US for wheat...

[phantom power]

9. One cannot squeeze oil from the sand with a jawbone.

Or something.

[Tesha]

10. At least "not the jawbone of an ass..." (NT)