Way, way back in 1990, Murray Rothbard suggested that the Iraq War at that time had the purpose of RAISING the price of oil. The idea was to stop Saddam from cheating on OPEC. Iraq had the capacity to flood the market with oil, break the price, and reap big revenues. Rothbard pointed out the Bush connection to Big Oil, to Texas oil (then suffering from lower prices), and Bush’s visit to the Saudis in an effort to keep prices UP.
This theory makes eminently good sense. Americans need to know that the two Bushes have used the presidency to hold the price of oil up, prevent a free market, support OPEC, and create windfall profits for the oil industry.
Now comes further support for the Rothbard theory. I refer to an excellent article by investigative reporter Greg Palast. He argues that the James Baker-Dick Cheney team stopped the privatization of Iraq’s oil cold.
There are always rosy predictions of how much Iraq can ramp up oil supply. However, doing that requires a huge capital investment, and that’s controlled by oil companies that want to maintain the cartel. Whoever leads Iraq may, like Saddam, want to increase production, but will be pressured politically and by economic constraints.
4:36 pm on March 31, 2013
