I’m generally pessimistic about the Middle East—and the region never disappoints. I imagine that the situation there will get worse before it gets better. And the stakes will only get bigger for the west as time moves on.
As Praveen Swami points out in London’s Telegraph, we are going to become more dependent on the Middle Eastern oil in the not-too-distant future.
“Five nations now account for more than half the world’s proven reserves (that is, oil known to exist but yet to be extracted): Saudi Arabia with 19.8 per cent, followed by Iran with 10.3 per cent, Iraq with 8.6 per cent, Kuwait with 7.6 per cent and the United Arab Emirates with 7.3 per cent. Oil producers outside the Middle East are running out of oil faster than these five. Russia, which today produces almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia, will run out of oil by around 2020, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security has estimated. Key African producers such as Nigeria, whose output today helps stabilise prices and meet significant parts of global demand, will also run dry by 2025 or so. That means that the Middle East will, in the not too distant future, be the world’s principal source of oil – and there’s no great imagination needed to see why betting on stability is probably unwise.”
That dependence means that not only the United States, but also rising powers like China will be competing for influence and access to black gold. China deployed naval vessels in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time as events in Libya spin out of control. And their ability to project power is going to grow. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, which essentially looked to the United States as their Protector, will now have China as another possible suitor. The Americans will no longer be the only game in town. Beijing will become an increasingly important destination for Saudi diplomats and businessmen. At the same time, Iran recognizes that the United States and the Western World are increasingly dependent on the region’s oil so their ability to inflict maximum damage on us will grow. Earlier on BigPeace we quoted from a speech by an Iranian General who declared that soon “oil and gas fields belonging to Muslims, which are now in the hands of America, will fall into the hands of the people. “The enemy is heavily dependent on this energy and events in the region have them quite agitated, which of course provides us with a hopeful future.”
When the Middle East sneezes, the world trembles. Look for things to get worse before they get better. The pieces on the chessboard are moving. But Obama has yet to even touch a pawn. Where is his leadership? The crisis in the Middle East reveals that President Obama doesn’t think like a commander-in-chief, he thinks like a legislator. He defers to the United Nations and apparently asks the Saudis to do our bidding by asking them to supply arms to the Libyan opposition. I’m not in favor of military action. But what about bold, principled leadership? Does anyone in the Middle East–or in the United States for that matter—know where he stands on the events in the Middle East? Who does he want to come out on top? And how is he trying to make that happen?