Primacy In The Middle East: A Case Study

foreign policy in the Middle East and the oceans of crude oil that lie beneath the region's soil. Klare traces oil's impact on international affairs since World War II, revealing its influence on the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter doctrines. He shows how America's own wells are drying up as our demand increases; by 2010, the United States will need to import sixty percent of its oil. Since most of this supply will have to come from violently anti-American zones, our dependency is bound to lead to recurrent military involvement. "Ultimately, the cost of oil will be measured in blood: the blood of American soldiers who die in combat, the blood of the many other casualties of oil-related violence, including the victims of terrorism."

Recently, and especially since the 1990s, a popular conception of the world is that the age of empires and superpowers is waning, rapidly being replaced by a kind of global community made up of interdependent states and deeply connected through economics and technology. In this view, the United States' role following the Cold War is one of almost benign preeminence, in which it seeks to spread liberal democracy through economic globalization, and, failing that, military intervention. Even then, however, this military intervention is framed as part of a globalizing process, rather than any kind of unilateral imperialist endeavor. However, examining the history of the United States since nearly its inception all the way up to today reveals that nothing could be farther from the truth. The United States is an empire in the truest sense of the word, expanding its control through military force with seemingly no end other than its own enrichment. The United States' misadventure in Iraq puts the lie to the notion that US economic and military action is geared towards any kind of global progression towards liberal democracy, and forces one to re-imagine the United States' role in contemporary global affairs by recognizing the way in which it has attempted to secure its own hegemony by crippling any potential threats.

Benjamin Sovacool explains in his article that over the period of twelve years, the United States shale gas production increased 24.5 times the amount it produced in 1998. From 0.2 trillion cubic feet to an enormous 4.9 trillion cubic feet. Natural gas is also a huge financial benefit to North America. Before this drastic increase of fracking and natural gas production, the United States imported a clear majority of its oil and energy sources from the Middle East. This caused the middle east to obtain a control over the United States economic situation. For example, the 1979 oil embargo caused by OPEC (organization of petroleum exporting countries). According to Kimberly Amadeo, their decision to increase oil prices by a meager ten percent, caused oil rationing in the United States and worsened the already declining economy at this time. Since the increase in fracking and natural gas production, the U.S. has become decreasingly reliant on imported energy sources. Richard Janson denotes, that the impact of this influx of cheap gas has had many positive impacts on not only the economics of the energy industry, but foreign policy and the United States domestic policy. With the downfall in the need for imports for energy and the rise of hydraulic

Several oil-countries have been facing economic and political turbulence as a result of the crash in oil prices, and there is disagreement among OPEC as how to handle the situation. (Krauss) While this is happening, America’s oil production continues to rise, as it inches closer to becoming an energy superpower in production and consumption; and countries that depend on their oil exports face recession.

In his speech before the Bloomberg Energy Conference in New York on April, last year, former Canadian Minister on Natural Resources Joe Oliver outlined the significance of the Keystone XL oil pipeline in meeting the growing demands of the United States for an environmentally safe and secure energy source and distribution. He argued that North America’s continued growth as a global superpower depends on how it can meet its energy demands without depending so much on offshore sources such as the Middle East which are mostly in conflict and are therefore unstable. Oliver seems to present a compelling argument in favor of Canada’s energy projects especially when he cites independent third party reports made by the International Energy Agency

Our dependence on foreign oil and natural gas has created a vulnerability affecting our national security and economic stability. Up until this past decade there was an appreciable decline in our oil and natural gas production in the US and we were tied to world market price fluctuations. Oil prices and natural gas prices rose and fell based on OPEC’s and other large oil and natural gas producers’ production and pricing decisions. Beginning in 2005, things began to change in the US oil and natural gas industry. New technology called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” made it possible to extract oil and natural gas from geological

When analyzing the impacts of the building of the Keystone XL pipeline it can be seen it will impact our means of energy supplies. One way the United States would be helped is the Keystone XL pipeline would give the United States an increase in energy security. Or in other words, it would help stabilize the oil supply in the United States. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, “In 2013, the United States consumed a total of 6.89 million barrels of petroleum products, and average of 18.89 million barrels per day” (“How much oil is consumed in the United States”). Based on these statistics generated by the United States Energy Information Administration Americans have a heavy reliance on these products. With a

One example of how the United States dependency on foreign oil affects us is the situation in Iran. Iran is building a nuclear power plant, but that goes against the world law for Iran. Iran has threatened the world with the use of nuclear weapons and the creation of a nuclear power plant could help achieve those threats. The United States is struggling to deal with the actions of Iran because of the large amounts of oil they produce and export. They United States has to act on their own because the countries within the European Union do not want to upset Iran and compromise one of their supplies of oil. Many countries are taking advantage of their access of fossil fuels and going against United States foreign policy. However, if the United States controlled their own supply of oil they would be able to handle problems in the way that best suits them and the rest of the world. Another way that would ensure the United States national security is allowing ourselves to regulate how the crude oil is refined and guarantee clean oil is provided to consumers (About the Project). We would be able to control the way the oil is refined because the Keystone XL pipeline goes from the tar sands of Alberta directly to the refineries in Steele City, Nebraska. With the most up-to-date technology the once toxic tar sand oil would be converted to the pure oil like that oil refined from the

Advocates for the Keystone XL pipeline claim that it would permit the United States to upsurge energy security and diminish foreign oil as a necessity. The United States alone requires more than eight million barrels of imported oil per day and the dispute over the projected Keystone XL pipeline isn’t a dispute of fossil fuels against alternative resources. An ample percentage of the produced oil that will flow through the Keystone XL pipeline will most likely wind up being used up outside the U.S. This project will raise the weighty value of oil in the Central region of the U.S. by rerouting oil from the refineries located in the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico and other exporting

In 1973, in the wake of conflict in the Middle East, US drivers were feeling the repercussions with every gallon of gasoline and oil that they consumed. The members of OPEC placed an oil embargo on the US and several other nations because of their aid to the Israeli military. This embargo greatly pressured the US, who was highly dependent on foreign oil. In the aftermath of this crisis, President Nixon called for the increased energy production to avoid this problem in the future. Yet, in this present day, the United States faces a similar, although not as extreme, situation. Measures must be made to make the United States energy independent.

It is time for the US to prove its real intention which is fighting against terrorism. However, we cannot bomb or attack the supporters of the ISIS in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Iraq are the countries that we buy our oils. (globalpost, 2010) We cannot risk the explosion of oil reserves. If we cannot buy our oils from Middle East, we have to increase the prices, which will result in opposition from the society and decrease the Presidents

OPEC has consistently held the U.S. hostage with fixed oil prices and the threat of embargos. Many of the countries that belong to OPEC are not friendly to the United States, including: Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya, and Algeria. (Weil) The U.S. has declared many of these countries to be “state sponsors of terror”; however we still purchase their oil. (Fueling Terror) Increasing the United States’ oil production would give OPEC less of an opportunity to fix prices because demand for their product would fall. The peak oil production of ANWR is estimated to be up to 1.45 million barrels per day; that’s 1.45 million barrels of oil that OPEC would have to find another buyer for. They would either have to lower prices or production as a result of the flooded market. (Hastings) Currently the United States imports 4.885 million barrels of oil from OPEC daily. If we produced 1.45 million more barrels of oil per day we could cut our OPEC imports by more than twenty-five percent. (Petroleum Statistics) At $100 dollars per barrel that would be 145 million dollars that would stay in the United States every day; instead of being sent to countries that sponsor terrorism and reject basic human rights. Oil is fifty percent of Iran’s gross domestic product, fueling their ability to procure

The most dangerous investment that the United States supports is the investment with the Middle East. The United States obtains the majority of its oil from a trade agreement between them and countries in the Middle East. The Middle East produces a quarter of world oil supplies, it holds between two-thirds and three-quarters of all known oil reserves. For that reason, the United States and the West side of the globe have continued to define the region as being vitally important. Because of the area being so important, the United States continues to send troops overseas to protect this worldwide hot-spot location. It is both unsafe and vastly expensive to continue sending dedicated citizens to defend an area of the world that wants to go to war with them. Not only is it dangerous for the people who are risking their lives, but it is also putting the United States economy in danger as well. "Maintaining the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf costs upward of $60 billion a year." (Telhami, Shibley. "The Persian Gulf: Understanding the American Oil Strategy | Brookings Institution." Brookings. Brookings, 28 July 2016. Web. 25 May 2017.) Instead of endangering the lives of our own people, the United States could be drilling oil from right below several different states within its own country. The U.S. holds more oil reserves than any other country in the world, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela. It is estimated that the United States holds 264 billion barrels of oil. That total exceeds the 256 billion barrels found in Russia, and the 212 billion barrels located in Saudi Arabia. By using their own resources, the United States could save billions of dollars per year and save the lives of many citizens who are defending foreign investments in one of the most dangerous parts of the

The Importance of Oil in U.S. Foreign Policy During the oil and energy crisis of the mid-1970s Americans became painfully aware of the consequences of the United States dependence on foreign sources of oil. Unfortunately, research and exploration for alternative sources of oil in North America has not been pursued vigorously enough to cease such foreign dependence. As a result, in the mid-1990s Americans find themselves in the same precarious position as they were during the 1970s. The Persian-Gulf War in 1991 was all the proof needed to convince the United States of how strongly oil still influences our foreign policy and international relations in general. Oil and U.S. Foreign Policy: Historical Issues The United

Firstly, the future world globalization provides a challenge in U.S. foreign policy in striking a balance between its domestic need and foreign policy. This conflict is visible in its aspiration to be energy independent while at the same time working with other countries to mitigate the effect of climate change. The U.S. has been dependent on the middle for its source of oil; about 17 percent of U.S. oil imports come from