Oil: Accidental truth-telling down under
Oops. The Aussie defense minister acknowledged oil as the primary cause of the imperialist misadventure in Iraq yesterday, thereby embarassing his boss. Now there’s hell to pay.
The importance of Iraqi oil makes it imperative Australia maintain its troop presence in the Middle East, Aussie defense minister Brendan Nelson said in a radio interview Wednesday. Constantly battling critics charging that oil concerns dominated the decision to join the US invasion of Iraq, Prime Minister Glen Howard immediately moved into damage control mode, but not before a political firestorm had erupted.
Nelson quite sincerely seems to be under the faulty impression that the whole mess is a necessity.
“”The Middle East itself, not only Iraq, but the entire region is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world,” he said, concluding ‘(We) need to think what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq.’”
Leaving aside the whole moral question of whether its justifiable to steal what you believe you need, the short reply to Nelson’s imploring that we think of the consequences of ceasing to steal oil is “The market would adapt“. Thus, the countries of the United States and Australia don’t need Iraqi oil. Principally, only the big petroleum interests do — as they would stand to lose wealth and influence if the market forced an economic shift away from an oil economy.
Markets work. Let them.
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