One of many reasons for Dick Cheney’s jaunt to the Middle East is a desire to stabilize the global oil market, presumably by putting pressure on regional oil producers to kick in some extra supply. In addition to being a bad idea like nearly everything cooked up by the ideologically-bereft hawks running Washington, the real problem is that there is no excess oil to be pumped.
Many analysts believe that the world has passed or is about to pass the point of Peak Oil when more than half of the world’s total oil reserves have been consumed and when tightening supplies and rising demands lead to a state of permanent energy crisis. The events of the past few years have done nothing to alter this conclusion, with oil recently reaching record prices of over $110 per barrel. Yet the American press almost totally ignores this story in favor of stories about radical preachers and sex scandals.
America’s pressure on oil producers is thus doubly destructive. At a time when the US should be leading a international effort to find new and sustainable sources of energy, it is merely falling back on its old strategy of squeezing every last drop of oil out of the ground. It is in keeping with the Bush Administration’s philosophy of asking others to sacrifice while America continues to consume a wildly disproportionate share of the Earth’s energy inheritance.
US determination to establish permanent bases in Iraq in addition to facilities elsewhere in the Middle East only fuels the impression that America’s long-term strategy is one of military domination in a world of expected resource conflicts. In the absence of a coherent strategy for developing other energy sources – solar, wind, and as-of-yet unforeseen technologies – it is a plan that can only lead to global catastrophe.
Unfortunately, most other states of the region are following the American model of development and transportation based on cars and petroleum, nowhere more disastrously than Egypt. The streets of Cairo are choked with cars, taxis, and minibuses whose viability depends on state subsidization of oil, which is neither economically nor environmentally responsible. Every poisoned breath that we take here is a testament to the folly of this path.
And of course when the crash happens, it will be those with the fewest resources – Egyptians and other denizens of poor and dependent states – who pay the highest price. Marginal increases in the price of bread and other commodities here have caused terrible hardship in recent days, and is an ominous foreshadowing of things to come if global leaders do not come together to solve this problem. Egyptians only need to think back to the tumultuous days of the late 70s to remember how sensitive this system is to increases in food prices.
The government here appears to believe that nuclear energy is an alternative to the oil economy. This week Mubarak is expected to sign an agreement with Russia for the development of more nuclear reactors. Once again US reaction to this move focuses on Israeli security, which entirely misses the biggest problem. Egypt has no intention of threatening Israel with nuclear weapons. The real trouble is that, if anything, the global supply of nuclear materials is tighter than the petroleum market.
It is not just the price of oil that’s going to go up in the coming years. The global economy depends, to a degree that is not widely understood, on the flow of cheap oil. Everything from plastics to air transportation to pharmaceuticals is dependent on the premise that we can keep unearthing new supplies of oil until some deus ex machina emerges to save modern industrial civilization from the inevitable exhaustion of petroleum.
While there are surely peaks and valleys ahead of us for oil, there will be no retreat to the oil prices of the 1990s, when Americans giddily slurped up gas that was cheaper than a bottle of water and bought SUVs that resembled armored troop carriers more than cars. Despite his extensive ties to an oil industry that sees this problem more clearly than anyone else, and despite statements he made prior to becoming US Vice President which indicated his understanding of Peak Oil, Cheney and his enablers refuse to do anything to address the crisis.
The Bush Administration’s energy myopia is yet one more reason to hope for new leadership in the US, but the problem is bigger than Dick Cheney, John McCain or Barack Obama. And it’s about time we ceased badgering the Saudis for more oil and started asking more important questions. The cost of not doing so may be more terrible than any of us can imagine.
David M. Faris is an American political commentator and Ph.D candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently doing research in Cairo.
