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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (133217)	5/17/2004 11:32:19 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Respond to of 281500

Hi Bilow; If Iraq does end up with a civil war, which is not unlikely, it is highly unlikely that they will continue producing as much oil as they produce even now. As the American public gets less tolerant of our loss of lives and treasure in Iraq, and as the Iraqis become more aware that the U.S. Administration will have to bow to public pressure and leave, it will be interesting to see whether Iraqi leaders in the Shi's, Sunni and Kurd populations will emerge with the will, the strength and the support to lead Iraq in a peaceful direction. Given the tremendous suffering of the Iraqi people in recent years, especially as a consequence of their war with Iran and the slaughters that followed their invasion of Kuwait, they may be ready to support a peaceful, unifying movement with their active efforts. Or maybe not. It appears that there are decades of unaddressed issues that must be resolved. That process is one that the Iraqis will have to undertake internally. The turmoil may result in civil war and will, as you've indicated, likely result in a reduction in their oil production; maybe even a total disruption for a time. The world can handle that disruption now, even though it will cause problems but in the future, as the excess capacity of the Saudis decreases or disappears, the repercussions will be greater. At some point, however, the needs of the IRAQI people should require that they stabilize their oil production and capitalize on the tremendous value of sitting atop one of the two greatest reservoirs of light, sweet crude oil. Of course we may all end up like Mel Gibson in Mad Max anyway, wandering around like gypsies looking for petrol for our cobbled together dune buggies; the last vestiges of a society that refused to give up its reliance on oil.