One need not necessarily subscribe to it, yet conspiracy theorists are to be found everywhere, especially when oil and energy assets of this world are involved. But before answering why, one has to look at the fact sheet closely. It is often said that the US went to war in this region, to secure its lifeline — energy requirements!
Countries of this broader region — Central Asia and the Middle East, control more than 60 percent of global energy reserves.
On the other hand, Canada, the US, Norway, UK, Denmark and Australia control approximately four percent of the total oil reserves. In the alternative estimate of the Oil & Gas Journal, which also includes Canada’s oil sands, this percentage goes up to 16.5 percent from the above four percent.
The largest share of the world’s oil reserves lies in region extending (North) from the tip of Yemen to the Caspian Sea basin and (East) from the Eastern Mediterranean coastline to the Gulf.
This is the region that some attribute as the theater of the US-led “war on terrorism” holds, according to the estimates of World Oil, more than 60 percent of the global oil reserves.
In order to understand the logic behind the argument of the conspiracy theorists, one has to keep in mind that Iraq has five times more oil than the United States, the countries of this extended region possess at least 16 times more oil than the Western countries and interestingly, even the other countries on the global energy map, Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, China and Brazil, are on competing, if not combating, terms with the sole global power, the United States.
That makes Washington’s position still more precarious, the conspiracy theorists argue. The oil fields today stand almost encircled. Iraq is under occupation, the US presence in Afghanistan ensures the strategic energy related interests of the US in the energy rich Central Asia, the US carrier strike groups and destroyer squadrons are increasingly making their presence felt in the Gulf, tightening in the process the noose around the bellicose Iran.
The new US Defense Secretary Robert Gates makes it clear the US has all the intentions and indeed capability to stay in the region for a long time to come and the NATO warships are stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, too. And conspiracy theorists have other ammunitions too in their armament. Civil wars, in several other strategic oil and gas regions including Nigeria, the Sudan, Colombia, Somalia, Yemen, Angola also are indicative of “the hegemonistic designs,” they forcefully argue.
After all, regions, especially those in the “underdeveloped world” rich in energy assets are today under one crisis or the other. Is there any link between the crisis and their energy riches? The crisis in Darfur, is motivated by its extensive oil reserves, some openly say today. Similarly the interest in Somalia too, and in rest of Africa today, is driven by the lust for its energy assets, these argue.
“According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants, Conoco, Amoco (now part of BP), Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-US president Siad Barre was overthrown in January 1991,” Michael Chossudovsky said in a Global Research article dated Jan. 4. He was quoting from the paper America’s Interests in Somalia, Global Research 2002. In the meantime, the US has announced plans setting up an African command too. Commenting on the plans and the emerging crisis in the energy-rich Horn of Africa, Jason Motlagh, a deputy foreign editor at the United Press International in Washington, argued “the conflict in Somalia may accelerate — and complicate — US Defense Department plans to set up the new command to protect oil interests in Western Africa.” Energy officials admit the Gulf of Guinea will produce 25 percent of US crude by 2010, placing the region ahead of it major suppliers today. The Bush administration has thus designated West African oil as a “strategic national interest.”
There is also a growing competition today to dominate the supply routes and pipelines carrying oil and gas to various markets places around the globe.
With all this ammunition at disposal, if the conspiracy theorists claim that behind each US move, a trail of oil could easily be seen — they could not be outrightly rejected. After all they carry some weight! And this is what is known as the energy geopolitics.
