Peak Oil and Iraq

For sure Iraq's oil was a major concern for those who plotted the war against Iraq. It's likely that they believe (or pretend to believe) the Peak Oil theory, which says that world production of oil is nearing a peak (or may already have reached it) and that thereafter oil production is all downhill — bad news for oil-gluttonous societies, especially for the most oil-gluttonous of all by far, the U.S.A.

Certainly the demand for oil by the industrial economies of the world continues to grow, and with the industrialization of India and China this demand can be expected to accelerate. If the U.S. were to gain control of the Middle East's oil production then it would have an economic weapon to use against any countries it considered a threat to its domination of the planet. Oil can thus be seen as the major motivation for the U.S. invasion and present occupation of Iraq.

Here are some articles which either accept Peak Oil and warn of the dire consequences, or regard Peak Oil as the Bush administration's main motive for invading Iraq:

However not everyone believes that the Peak Oil theory is true. Some say that there's an ocean of oil in Alaska and "enormous reserves in the horn of Africa, Mexico, Alberta Canada and off both coasts of the USA". And some claim that oil is not, as is commonly believed, a non-renewable resource. Here is a short article concerning theories of oil as biogenic or abiogenic:

This article says that some oil fields are being replenished:

This blog severely doubts that, and the writer believes that Americans are living in fantasy-land:

It is estimated that the US kicked off the oil age in the mid-nineteenth century with about 210 billion barrels of oil underground. According to United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), we now have about 21 billion barrels left, one-tenth of what we started with. ... [The] "cornucopians" often claim that oil is a self-renewing resource, that a great master pool of oil exists deep in the earth's core, like the creamy nougat center of a bonbon, always seeping upward and replenishing the oil fields. If this is so, then how come US production goes consistantly down year after year? — The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle

But the theory that oil can be traced back to hydrocarbons present at the formation of the Earth has been advanced by an eminent scientist, the late Thomas Gold. See Oil Doesn't Come from Squashed Ferns and Fish?? (which compares evidence for both theories of the origin of oil).

Here are several articles which regard Peak Oil as a hoax, either as a justification for the invasion by the U.S. of countries it wishes to control, or simply as a way of pushing up the price of oil so that the oil companies make even more profit:

The views of these three people are always worth thinking about:

Here are four articles on this site by Andrew McKillop, an expert in the field of energy studies. He definitely does not believe that Peak Oil is a hoax.

Concentration on peak oil issue distracts from a more immediate problem: the fact that the perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocity remain free to pursue policies that are an imminent threat to world peace and the survival of life on Earth. Actually the two things are connected. Those who are responsible for the US policy of military aggression are motivated by a desire to sustain and control oil-based industrial society (as long as they can keep it going) for the sake of the profits it provides them with. Identifying those responsible for 9/11 (and removing them from power, if not putting them in jail) would be a good first step to dealing with the world's problem of its addiction to oil.

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