The Baker report highlights massive shortages in world oil supplies which
now leave the US facing 'unprecedented energy price volatility' and has led
to recurring electricity black-outs in areas such as California.
The report refers to the impact of fuel shortages on voters. It recommends a
'new and viable US energy policy central to America's domestic economy and
to [the] nation's security and foreign policy'.
Iraq, the report says, 'turns its taps on and off when it has felt such
action was in its strategic interest to do so', adding that there is a
'possibility that Saddam Hussein may remove Iraqi oil from the market for an
extended period of time' in order to damage prices.
The report also says that Cheney should integrate energy and security to
stop 'manipulations of markets by any state', and suggests that Cheney's
Energy Policy Group includes 'representation from the Department of
Defence'.
'Unless the United States assumes a leadership role in the formation of new
rules of the game,' the report says, 'US firms, US consumers and the US
government [will be left] in a weaker position.
Here is the essence of the small - tiny, divergence amongst those who ponder the meaning of the above. Iraq destabilizes prices in the world oil market. Ain't no shortage of oil on the world market. This is combined with the perceived need of the Bush administration to carry out the long term policy of USNA imperialism to modernize the superstructure - the political superstructure, of the Middle East - in general.
Iran scared the profits out of the USNA imperialist. "That" kind of bourgeois revolution is unacceptable to my imperialist. Keeping Iraqi oil off the market is strategic in the sense of the immediate future, which spans from 24-50 months.
Powell been opening up Africa. Putin is positioning. Latin American - in terms of oil, is in the game as is Mexico. Saddam is an entry point that can be "proven" to a reactionary sector of the American peoples.
Shortage versus glut is somewhat scholastic, but hey.
Let's see what happens in the contest of our individual wills making a difference.
We can proceed from a different standpoint - pardon, vantage point or point of view, and come up with the same conclusion.
Melvin P.
