No Exit Strategy: It's the Oil

October 18, 2007
No Exit Strategy: It's the Oil

Iraq is 'unwinnable', a 'quagmire', a 'fiasco': so goes the received opinion. But there is good
reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US
may be 'stuck' precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no 'exit
strategy'.

Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in
the United States. And, because of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world's
oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; in Texas
alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq
may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300
billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one
quarter of the world's oil resources. The value of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low
production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today's prices. For purposes of
comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion.