Drawing the Battle Lines

A divide is coming. The divide has been a long time in coming, but other events are finally starting to push it to the breaking point. Yesterday, Iraq opened up its oil fields to development by Western oil companies. Saudi Arabia has also recently talked about how they are willing to increase production by small amounts. This is in contrast to many other oil companies who are run by dictatorial regimes and simply want a lot of money.

Iraq has no real choice but to invite Western companies in, simply because it still lacks the complete infrastructure to put out what they are capable of producing. Plus, the Iraqi government is generally pro-Western given their recent situation. Saudi Arabia on the other hand is simply being farsighted. They know the price of oil will stay high due to insane demand from China and India. But they are very worried that the rocketing prices will push the US and Canada to establish themselves as completely independent of foreign oil and develop alternatives to oil that they would in turn sell to Europe, undercutting the market.

On the other side of the fence, you have most other OPEC nations, being led by the Iran-Russia alliance. These nations are more than willing to take a short amount of pain in the effort to keep themselves rich and use oil as a weapon against more powerful nations. Iran in particular has made no secret of the fact that they will close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic (where 40% of Middle Eastern oil passes through) if their nuclear facilities are attacked or if anyone sides with Israel in the event of an Iranian retaliation for an Israeli attack.

More than likely, the world will see two camps form. Russia and Iran will take the point and lure as many oil producing and oil processing nations into their alliance (this would include Turkey who doesn’t produce much oil, but controls a large number of oil pipelines). Counterbalancing this would be the more pro-Western oil nations who grow more and more fearful of not only loss of influence, but outright military assault.

This will probably have the effect of creating an odd looking set of concentric rings around Israel. Israel would be at the center, surrounded by a set of nations and factions that are all either pro-Iranian, or Iranian proxies. Then there would be a second ring where the countries, while not pro-Israel, are at least indifferent and opposed to Iran (Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, SA). Then there would be the outer ring of the of the oil-war nations (Iran, Russia and the various -stans, Turkey, Libya, Sudan, Nigeria, etc.). What’s more, while the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan might be able to remain free of the oil-war league’s nets, other countries such as India, China, and parts of Europe might be forced to dance to whatever tune the Russians and Iranians dictate due to their own energy demands.

We know Israel will be forced to deal with Iran very soon. However, it’s actions in the face of the power of the new alliance that is forming means that Israel will soon stand alone. Even the US will probably be forced to be less vocal in its support, no matter which party wins the White House. Once that happens, woe to us all.