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July 9, 2005
It's not practical to deny the Iraqis their oil. . . .
Practical Politics and myself are butting heads again. Here's their latest suggestion.
My response:
Your "practical" approach sounds great, except your leaving out a significant economic factor.
National economies are built upon natural resources present and exploitable within said nation.
America was built on fur, gold, food and fuels, we've grown our economy from this base to a vast destributed economic engine that is the greatest the planet has ever seen.
You also seem to keep this "oil dictator" theme going. "Oil Dictators" are definately a problem, but hardly the only source. The radical muslim extremists of Indonesia aren't "oil dictator" muslims, the radical muslim extremists of SE Asia aren't "oil dictator" muslims. The extremist muslims of Africa aren't necessarily either.
Afghanistan could hardly be considered an "oil dictatorship" either.
Your ideas of placing "moderate" Islamic ideas forward is kind, but it's "impractical". Why? Because there IS NO effective moderate Islamic movement. You'd be hard pressed to find 10 "moderate" imams willing to put a shiny happy face forward for their society and they MOST CERTAINLY won't disparage the Wahabbist imams. In fact, one of the restraints built into Islam is a prohibition of Muslims criticizing other Muslims in any venue for any reason where a Non-Muslim may hear such criticism. Any cleric who speaks out against Osama, or the Kohmenini's or Zawahiri's is guilty of defaming Islam. Salman Rushdie wasn't a cleric, but his case is an excellent example.
The "moderate" voices, AS ALWAYS have to come from the street. Martin Luther did not operate in a vacuum and was simply responding to the culture developing around him which rejected the heavy hand of the church.
By bringing democracy and economic prosperity (Iraqi's today have a higher per capita income than pre-war levels, and capital investement into infrastructure is higher than EVER) will allow the moderate voices to rise up. Telephones, Internet, Satellite Television and more methods of mass communication will turn the tide here. Libraries and universities and schools are opening in great numbers in Afghanistan and Iraq. And a true moderate voice is developing in each of these regions. Not because of denial of natural resources, but rather the free exercise of democracy (developing) and the utilization of natural resources to fund said democracy. Not to mention giving the people themselves a voice which in toto will always appeal to moderation.
Denying them the only major resource in the region is condemning their economies to certain death and should not be advocated. Economic collapse would only lead to a stronger foothold for extremists and radicals.
Not to mention that your suggestions are impractical for the non-muslim world (and I'm not talking about the Western World). I'm talking about emerging economies in the third world and even some second world economies. Destroying them will only create more desparate people.
The key to any stability anywhere is to get per capita income up to a livable wage. One that provides for the food and shelter needs in relative abundance and leaving enough income left over for pursuit of "leisure" and "self improvement". Sucking the economic driver for Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran or any other nation will only create citizenry in poverty, ease their trasition to extremism and tank any hope that a viable economy could develop.
It'd be the same as creating a ban on logging during the American westward expansion, or devaluing gold during the gold rush, or prohibiting the extraction of iron ore. National economies NEED their natural resources to build an economy from. The problem isn't the OIL, it's corrupt governments that were put in charge of it through English, French, Russian and American mistakes or through Islamic revolution.
Let them have their oil. Let them sell it, just help them use this wealth to build a viable economy that transcends a simply oil driven economy (just as you pointed out that Dubai did). Sell them John Deere combines and teach them how to use them in the Valley's of NW Iraq and SW Afghanistan, to crate an agribusiness infrastructure that provides an abundance of food. Build manufacturing plants and and a transportation infrastructre, work with them to create an energy infrastructure that delivers a surplus of energy. (Surplus food and Surplus usable energy are KEY FACTORS to creating a successful economy and stable governments).
I'm all for the elimination of oil as a source of energy, but it's going to take a while to manage such a quantuum shift (regardless of what anyone says, such a shift IS underway). Even after the US switches to another form of energy (which is inevitable) the rest of the world will still be using oil and buying it from those Middle East nations that have it. Even after oil-for-energy is gone, there will still be a need for it in plastics and more. Oil isn't going away anytime soon. It's also prudent to point out that the Earth is designed to produce oil as a natural resource, just as it's designed to produce trees.
Natural resources should only be denied to a population for exploitation when there's a problem with the governance of that population. Take out the problem governments, support the development of democracies and the "moderates" will eventually appear as a natural course of events, limiting the power of the radicals and extremists.
There you have it. Although I'm finding myself disagreeing with Practical Politics quite a bit, I'm still keeping them on my Blogroll. I believe they want to have a robust discussion, even if I find their suggestions a bit impractical.
--Jason
Posted by JasonColeman at July 9, 2005 2:18 PM
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Comments
Sorry for not responding, I was gone a while. I really think, atleast based on this, that we agree on alot more than we disagree on. I think you're misinterpreting some of my stances, and I'll follow up on this (more extensively) really soon.
Posted by: William at July 17, 2005 8:39 PM
Alright, once again, sorry for the late response.
As I said earlier, I think we really are finally in agreement (if this is your only disagreement). When I say deny them their oil revenue, I don't mean literally take it away from them (however that would work) but rather reduce our own consumption of oil.
I believe you agree that is an important task that must be handled, and although consumption will never hit 'nil (plastics, fertilizer, & tar o my...) we can get it down to the point where everyone can consume as much as we do without destroying the environment (not so much the current stuff, but the less friendly substitutes when we run out, ie tar oil). Reduction of oil consumption will always be a PP top priority, for, the only thing that's going to make it's elimination inevitable is a plain realization by our political leadership that we have a problem and an equally straighforward solution. I'm about 3/4 the way through "Collapse" (really good book, same guy that did GGS, perhaps you've read it), and that's the best way societies have dealt with similar problems in the past. But that's another subject.
Reducing our own consumption would however force the oil-states to recognize there will come a time when the wells will no longer support them and/or run dry, making them bring about many of the economic measures you mentioned above. Yet as long at they remain dictatorships, there is no gaurantee that their leadership will have the best interests of their nations at heart, much less our best interests, thus we must use whatever means at our disposal to bring about reforms in these states, in extreme cases regime-change by force. You mention Afghanistan and other non-oil state groups as unadressed in the practical policy, but they really are. All of those groups would and are combatted in the daily war on terror (included in the PP), which makes their lives difficult, but their ultimate cause remains the oil-state back bone. Yes, there are other states, notably Pakistan, that provide/d support, but nowhere near the scale that the oil-states provide. These oil-states & their citizens support the primary mosques & clerics, pump out the propaganda, build the extremist schools, build and fund extremist mosques in foreign countries, which all provide support to their most shady of contribution (this done by secretive citizens now, no longer so-much the governments), the terrorist organizations, and sometimes terrorist governments (Taliban), themselves. They give them not just the kind of power to fester but to leap across oceans and strike at us. Thus, although the terrorists of SE Asia, Afghanistan, and other places may seem to stand on their own, they really do get most of their power from the oil-states.
Now extremism in Africa (South of the Sahara, Libya, Egypt etc. is same-old) is an issue upon which I am poorly educated. Although I do know that Sudan has oil, I do not pin that as the ultimate cause. Rather, I think extremism is just another expression of their extreme environmental problems. Notice that they do not produce global terrorist organizations, but rather use the sick philosophy of extremism to go about killing eachother because they're upset about other things. Once again, see the "Collapse" explanation of Rwanda. Whereas ethnic tensions were the short-term cause, the long-term was too-many people on too-little resources.
I really think that if you acknowledge the oil-states as the back bone of extremism, then we are in complete agreement on how to go about combatting extremism (except in the sub-Saharan Africa, which is not as large an issue (yet) due to their lack of resources), thus letting our debate bear good fruit.
Posted by: William at July 18, 2005 12:05 AM
