War for Oil

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Now that someone has poked the hornets nest in which the neo-isolationists had been sequestered, I would like to add some iconoclastic observations about a troubled region, rich in oil, but plagued by human rights abuse and host to terrorist groups. No, not Iraq -- that would be trite.

Instead I will now address Sudan, while it is more chic than trite.

In particular, somebody should tell the realists, or anyone who thinks that foreign oil is important to our national interest, that Sudan has lots of oil.

Nobody really knows how much, though, due to to the nation's steadied practice of misgoverning itself since the British left Sudan free to do so. It seems that the Sudanese practice of blowing stuff up impeded prospecting and oil production. So while proven reserves have mushroomed: from almost nothing in the last 5 years to over 500M barrels, estimates of total oil exceed 10 billion barrels.

What makes this interesting, at least for those of us who understand economic principles, is that the oil in Sudan matters a lot more than the oil in Iraq. Yes, even though Iraq has more oil. The reason is because what matters is oil production. Saddam, had he not been impeded by our sanctions, would have happily pumped plenty of oil. The Sudanese can't get their act together. So intervention in Sudan would surely increase world oil supplies shortly, whereas there was no reasonable hope that intervention Iraq would increase world oil supplies.

And someone should also send all the decent folks who think that an intervention in Sudan would be purely about stopping a horrific genocide: it might actually result in an imperial oil adventure, too.

Not that they'd mind: the Christian and animist victims of the Arab-controlled government would surely welcome the respite.

Toss in the fact that the oil is located in the Christian south, and that if the oil wealth is stolen by the Arab Muslim north, we might be facing a Saudi style terrorism problem in the future, and the case for intervention purely on national security grounds seems strong.

It is further bolstered by soft power matters -- the US might do well to claim, credibly in Sudan, since the crimes against humanity are so egregious are the main focus of attention, that it is indeed willing to intervene for humanitarian causes, even in Africa. Our failure to act in Rwanda, contrasted with our intervention in Iraq -- which is apparently now justified as a humanitarian intervention -- cause many to hear our freedom rhetoric with a cynical ear. Sudan might offer the cure.

Now on to the exciting flipside:

Liberals ought to be cautious about urging an intervention in Sudan. They are likely to feel more pain from the future interventions such a precedent would allow than relief from the good works done in Sudan. A next likely target, after all, would be Syria -- a brutal dictatorship run by a religious minority clique, with a habit of occupying and looting its southwesterly neighbor.

A target more distant, and orders of magnitude more troubling to our liberal friends, of course, would be Cuba, which has been heating up the pressure on dissidents. Platt Amendment #2, anyone?