Emad Mekay

With threats of a Venezuelan oil blockade helping to push petroleum prices higher, neo-conservative politicians and analysts continue to insist the biggest threat to US energy supplies is Washington’s reliance on Middle East oil.

President Hugo Chavez on Sunday vowed to halt oil exports to the United States and launch a “100-year war” if Washington ever tried to invade Venezuela. The United States has repetitively denied trying to topple Chavez, but the embattled president, facing another round of demands for a referendum on his possible recall — including violent street protests that saw 10 people killed — says Washington was behind a failed 2002 coup and continues to back opposition groups seeking the vote.

Venezuela is the third largest producer in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). But at a conference here Friday organised by the Brookings Institution and the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), analysts almost completely ignored troubles in Venezuela, with many insisting that the greatest “threat” to US oil security comes from the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Iran and Iraq together account for 64 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves. Saudi Arabia alone controls 27 per cent of the world’s oil supplies. Middle Eastern countries supplied about 20 per cent of US oil needs in 2002, according to the US Department of Energy. Canada was the largest exporter of oil to the United States, followed by Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Venezuela.

The conservative analysts argued that “ethnic and religious conflicts” and the US “war on terrorism” in the region have made trading relationships with countries there more fragile than ever. Yet the only three military operations in the region today involve Israel, a nation strongly backed by neo-conservatives, and the United States which is involved in Iraq and Afghanistan and carries out joint military and intelligence operations with the region’s dictatorships to root out local opposition.

Conservative oil analysts also argue that oil is likely to be used as a weapon if radical groups take power. And that if more oil money starts flowing into Arab countries, those economies — under different rulers — could pose a military threat to Israel. Israelis, on the other hand, are concerned that Arab leaders could use oil as a weapon to leverage their influence across the world, especially in Washington.

A similar call came earlier this month when C. Fred Bergsten, who heads the Institute of International Economics (IIE), wrote in the influential periodical ‘Foreign Affairs’ that dependence on foreign oil “keeps US foreign policy beholden to a few key producers”.

Bergsten suggested the US start a new campaign to cut world oil prices and to lessen reliance on Mideast supplies.

The conservative energy specialists also argue US needs to take some risks, including boosting its use of nuclear power. While admitting that “the wrong exposure there (nuclear energy) can kill you fairly quickly”, Brookings Fellow James A. Placke said an argument can be made that fossil fuel emissions, in the long run, are just as lethal as a nuclear disaster. — IPS