Mission Accomplished

Ten years ago Osama bin Laden proclaimed that he wanted to see the price of oil spike to $144 a barrel. At the time it sold for $11. The rise in oil prices is, to some degree connected to increased demand by players like China, but a key part of the picture is undoubtedly Osama bin Laden's successful baiting of Bush into a Middle East quagmire (that, ironically, has bolstered the regional fortunes of Iran more than our own) at enormous political and economic cost to the US.

Regarding the BushCo venture into Iraq specifically, Mamdouh Salameh, an oil economist and adviser to the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation, believes the oil would be trading at $40 a barrel, less than a third of the current price, if not for the Iraq war. (Oil production in Iraq is currently $2 million barrels a day, down from 3.5 million under Saddam - despite sanctions against the dictator that limited Iraqi oil flow.) Weakening of the dollar and massive increases in indebtedness add to the administration failures that make us more vulnerable to the vagaries of the oil markets.

Rather than use the tragic events of Sepember 11, 2001 to wake the American people to the perils of dependence on a volatile, potentially hostile Middle East for our energy needs and to reassert a major push toward alternatives and conservation - which a stricken, united country would have responded to mightily - President Bush signaled that the most important task of the citizenry in the wake of the attacks was renewed consumption. (I say "reassert" because the much-maligned Jimmy Carter had projected this priority a quarter century before.) Meanwhile, the Bush administration set its sights on digging even deeper holes for us in the Arab world. Who knows - they might have even believed that they'd get their hands on cheap oil via an aggressive - albeit incoherent - military strategy. Given the record of miscalculation and incompetence in pursuing the overthrow of Saddam, anything is possible.

But hubris has a price. Reality bit. And somewhere, someone is sitting in a cave, laughing. As oil hits $144 a barrell, Bin Laden can claim at least one mission accomplished.

Comments

[Jamie]

It just shows how much they have in common. Both get their financial support from the oil industry and their popular support from fear mongering and religious fanaticism. They are two sides of the same filthy, blood-stained coin.