Something about the recent conflict in Lebanon continues to bother me. In fact, something bothers me about the many conflicts centering around Israel and Lebanon over the last 60 or so years. The problem is that none of these conflicts, not even the present one, have much to do with religion at all. The problem with the current conflicts in the middle east is that the region is cursed with a vital natural resource. Valuable natural resources are one of the worst problems to ever plague the nation-state. Must-have resources from oil to diamonds to opium, bring blood to the land they occupy. It is supposedly a fact of life that with disturbance in the Middle East, oil prices rise. But what if we are reversing cause and effect? Take, for instance, the 1973 OAPEC oil embargo. On the surface, this is a clear instance of cause and effect. The Yom Kippur War was the proximate cause of the embargo, and thus the spike in oil prices. But the root instability in the region, and across the third-world, was due to oil. Facing stagflation, Nixon made the decision to end the gold standard. While this was good for American industry, the value of raw goods produced elsewhere began to depreciate. While the dollar fell, so did the price of oil. The economies of Israel's neighbors suffered, and instability increased. Ergo the Yom Kippur War. I doubt the current conflict could happen without the price of oil where it is at now. Iran fills Hezbollah's coffers with oil money. Ahmedinejad has the audacity to do this because he knows rational Westerners can do little to retaliate without disturbing world oil markets further, and incurring the wrath of Russia and China. Oil is not only haunting the Shiite crescent. Another big supplier, Sudan, has literally been able to get away with murder because of demand for crude. China has (so far, at least) essentially obstructed efforts by the Security Council to take action on the genocide in Darfur because it needs new oil markets. Do we live in an era of religious fanaticism? Perhaps. But surely God is not the cause of oil nearing $80 a barrel.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
The Curse of Abundance
Something about the recent conflict in Lebanon continues to bother me. In fact, something bothers me about the many conflicts centering around Israel and Lebanon over the last 60 or so years. The problem is that none of these conflicts, not even the present one, have much to do with religion at all. The problem with the current conflicts in the middle east is that the region is cursed with a vital natural resource. Valuable natural resources are one of the worst problems to ever plague the nation-state. Must-have resources from oil to diamonds to opium, bring blood to the land they occupy. It is supposedly a fact of life that with disturbance in the Middle East, oil prices rise. But what if we are reversing cause and effect? Take, for instance, the 1973 OAPEC oil embargo. On the surface, this is a clear instance of cause and effect. The Yom Kippur War was the proximate cause of the embargo, and thus the spike in oil prices. But the root instability in the region, and across the third-world, was due to oil. Facing stagflation, Nixon made the decision to end the gold standard. While this was good for American industry, the value of raw goods produced elsewhere began to depreciate. While the dollar fell, so did the price of oil. The economies of Israel's neighbors suffered, and instability increased. Ergo the Yom Kippur War. I doubt the current conflict could happen without the price of oil where it is at now. Iran fills Hezbollah's coffers with oil money. Ahmedinejad has the audacity to do this because he knows rational Westerners can do little to retaliate without disturbing world oil markets further, and incurring the wrath of Russia and China. Oil is not only haunting the Shiite crescent. Another big supplier, Sudan, has literally been able to get away with murder because of demand for crude. China has (so far, at least) essentially obstructed efforts by the Security Council to take action on the genocide in Darfur because it needs new oil markets. Do we live in an era of religious fanaticism? Perhaps. But surely God is not the cause of oil nearing $80 a barrel.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Very insightful. This would be a problem easily countered with a caliph in place. Until then, the nation first to develop efficient alternative fuels for mass market will have to take the hesitant steps towards their own malignment. Luck prevailing, such fuels will be cheap enough to forego undue conflict.
Post a Comment