Tag: Libya
Not yet time to use oil reserves
Dan Yergin is right: it is not yet time to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Why not?
The 727 billion barrel SPR is intended for use in an oil supply disruption. Libya has partially disrupted its own oil supplies, but they are relatively small, about 1.5 million barrels per day of exports. Oil prices are spiking, but not because of the Libyan supply disruption. As Yergin says, they are anticipating risks in the future, risks like demonstrations in Saudi Arabia that might disrupt the massive supplies that come from its Shia-populated Eastern Province.
We should be urging oil exporting countries to increase their production in response to higher prices, which they are likely to do in any case, and holding our own reserves in reserve for the possibility that things will get worse, possibly much worse. The market is telling us that is a real possibility.
I spent the years 1982-85, when oil prices fell sharply, preparing for an oil supply disruption and the resulting spike in prices as the U.S. representative to the emergency committee at the International Energy Agency. I trust the plans we developed then for a coordinated (with friends and allies) draw of oil stocks early in a supply disruption have been much improved since. Relatively small emergency drawdowns of the SPR were authorized during Desert Storm in 1991 and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Loans and exchanges have been used to meet other exigencies.
I understand that there is a real need for the White House to be seen as doing something to counter the rise in oil prices and defend the economic recovery. But there is a real risk that turmoil in the Middle East will eventually disrupt many millions of barrels per day of oil supply, making things much worse than they are today. I’d wait to see the whites of oil disruption’s eyes before using our most important, but inherently limited, weapon to defend against a price spike.
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Liar, liar pants on fire!
It is really hard to recommend this superbly done interview with Saif al Islam, who simply lies his way through:
Bravo Al Jazeera English!
The threat of surprises at the end should not be taken lightly. He and his father no doubt have some nasty moves planned.
PS: For those who need an antidote:
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What will Friday prayers bring?
Tomorrow is Friday again, and across the “greater” Middle East there will be prayers and restlessness. The big questions:
- Saudi Arabia: intellectuals have been signing petitions in favor of constitutional monarchy, but the experts are still betting that people will not go the street–it is illegal to demonstrate, and socially disapproved. We’ll see.
- Libya: most of the country is liberated already, but will crowds risk turning out in Tripoli?
- Egypt: Mubarak’s buddy prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, has stepped down. El Baradei at least is calling this a turning point. Will it open the way for real regime change that the military has been resisting?
- Tunisia: Ben Ali’s buddy prime minister has already stepped down, opening the way for real change, but the country is burdened with refugees from Libya. The Brits are at least trying to relieve that burden.
- Yemen: President Saleh has said he’ll step down in 2013. The political party opposition, buoyed by tribal support, is proposing he do it by the end of this year. Will that be enough to split his opponents and save his tuchas?
- Bahrain: formal opposition parties have presented reform demands in an opening bid for negotiations with the monarchy. Will that split them from the demonstrators?
- Iraq: The violent crackdown last weekend amplified what otherwise might have been relatively quiet demonstrations against corruption and for better services. Has the government learned its lesson?
- Jordan and Syria: little noise, as their king who allows demonstrations and president who doesn’t try to feed a reform half loaf to relatively weak oppositions. Will they succeed?
- Iran: crackdown in full swing with the arrest of Green Movement stars Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and their wives. Ahmedinejad is increasingly dominant and effective against both clerical and lay opponents, inside and outside the regime. Can he keep it up?
I can’t remember a time I looked forward so much to Friday, with anticipation but also with trepidation. The world could be looking very different by Sunday.
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To intervene or not to intervene
That’s the question today. With Muammar Gaddafi striking out in several directions with superior fire power and aircraft against the Libyan rebels, at least some of the rebel leadership in the east is talking about the need for foreign military intervention, including a No Fly Zone (NFZ), possibly bombing of Gaddafi’s amply hardened bunkers, and weapons. Secretary of Defense Gates has already said “no.” American assets are tied up elsewhere and there is no telling where it will end once we start.
He has a point. The Libyans should take care of Gaddafi on their own. With no clearly and legally constituted Libyan authority to ask for help, it is unlikely that the Russians and Chinese are going to go along with a UN Security Council resolution authorizing even the NFZ, never mind broader use of force. For the U.S. to intervene unilaterally in Libya at this point would be seen as injudicious, even criminal, by a large part of the world. And even with UNSC authorization, it is arguable that we just don’t have the capacity to handle another mess.
But failing to act and watching Gaddafi reestablish control over Tripoli, if not of the rest of the country, is also not an acceptable option. It would prolong the agony, including the agony to the rest of the world of soaring oil prices that threaten to stall the global economic recovery. It would open the possibility of Libya becoming a fragmented and failed state like Somalia, one in which international terrorists might well find comfort and haven. And it would leave Libyans at the mercy of a homicidal non-maniac, one who has long used murder and mayhem purposefully to ensure control.
So what do we do? I find myself sympathetic with former National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, who argued last night on CNN for a more intense diplomatic effort. I’m not really sure what he had in mind, but in my book that would mean in the first instance making sure Gaddafi’s sources of financing are completely closed off. Is oil still being exported? Where are the payments being deposited? Are all those accounts frozen? The U.S. Treasury has likely done its job well, but have the Italians, the Germans, the Maltese, the Cypriots and the Greeks?
I think we also need to talk in the UNSC about a new resolution that would authorize arms exports to the Libyan rebels. Paul Wolfowitz argues that it was a mistake to impose a blanket embargo, thus punishing the rebels as well as Gaddafi, who is already well-armed (and his suppliers won’t balk at violating the embargo). He is right, but it is a mistake that can and should be fixed as soon as possible with some diplomatic exertion, by opening an exception to the embargo for the anti-Gaddafi forces.
I continue to be hesitant about the NFZ, largely because of the difficulty and expense of implementing it. It would be far easier, as I’ve already said, to nail anything Gaddafi flies to the tarmac even before it takes off. In lieu of that, our diplomats should be talking with the Russians, Serbs and Czechs about ending any supplies or technical assistance they might still be providing to Gaddafi’s air force, which they have amply assisted in the past.
None of this can substitute for indigenous efforts to get rid of Gaddafi. Tough as it is to assemble and protest, Friday should not pass without a clear show from the demonstrators in Tripoli that they want him gone.
It would also greatly improve the situation if the Libyans could organize to speak with one voice. It is not yet clear that any of the committees in Benghazi and other cities is more than a local phenomenon. Despite the difficult circumstances, Libyans need to do now what Gaddafi has prevented them from doing for more than 40 years: organize a national institution that can speak legitimately for the Jamahiriya. That may require some international assistance in linking up the various rebel cities in a more coherent way.
If none of this diplomatic effort works, we’ll have to revisit the essential question over the weekend, which means putting the assets needed into place right away.
One intervention needs to start now: relief for the more or less 150,000 non-Libyan refugees who have fled Libya and accumulated on the border with Tunisia, as well as assistance to the many internally displaced Libyans. This will not be easy, but providing food, water, sanitation and shelter to these people is vital if we are to avoid a massive humanitarian catastrophe.
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Mad north northwest
Col. Muammar Gaddafi is widely assumed to be mad. President Ali Abdullah Saleh also laid claim to the adjective today when he said Washington and Tel Aviv were behind the protests spreading throughout the Arab world.
I don’t think either one is nuts. Saleh knows as well as anyone else that both Washington and Tel Aviv are discomforted by the protests, which threaten not only himself but other American and Israeli favorites. But Saleh also knows that labeling the protests as an American/Jewish conspiracy is a good bet for inducing Yemenis think twice about whether they merit support.
Gaddafi’s sartorial tastes and wild-eyed lying about not using violence against the protesters and about how much his people love him certainly merit being labeled as extravagant and delusional. But he knows that dictatorship is in large measure theater, and his efforts to create an alternative reality have served him well for more than 41 years. How Christiane Amanpour gets through an interview with him without laughing in his face I don’t know.
Neither Yemenis nor Libyans seem inclined to fall any longer for their leaders’ tall tales. Going along to get along was a reasonable strategy when you felt alone with your local autocrat and his security apparatus. But once you have 10,000 compatriots with you, the need to go along evaporates, along with the fear.
Unfortunately, there is still reason to fear both Gaddafi and Saleh.
Gaddafi is laying siege to his opponents in Zawiya, a town not far from Tripoli to the west, and is attacking there and farther afield using aircraft. The UN will feel obliged to impose a No Fly Zone if that continues. It would be easier and cheaper to act unilaterally to nail his planes to the tarmac, but I imagine cooler heads will prevail. One of his henchmen should at least try to remind Gaddafi that blocking food to Zawiya and shelling civilians are arguably crimes against humanity, for which he can expect to pay if he survives. Or maybe Christiane can work that into her next set of questions: “Do you know that you might be charged with crimes against humanity if you bomb civilians or deny them food?”
Saleh is a more complicated case. He is offering his opponents a role in government, which they have refused, preferring that he step down. He has been losing tribal support but now and again allows a peaceful demonstration without his thugs attacking it, as he did over the weekend. But his army sometimes shoots at demonstrators, especially if they are in Aden, where international scrutiny is less rigorous.
These are not madmen. They are men so attached to power that they cannot imagine living without it. And likely they are right. While Mubarak is setting a good example by withdrawing to Sharm el Sheikh to lick his wounds, I doubt either Saleh or Gaddafi will find a comfortable retirement home. And both can tell a hawk from a handsaw when the wind is southerly.
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Trying to see the humor in it
Three video items that have come to my attention today, causing my darker humor bone to vibrate:
1. Berlusconi kissing Gaddafi’s hand, courtesy of PressTV (they might have a bit of an ax to grind):
2. Saif al Islam selling snake oil to Christiane Amanpour, who isn’t buying, courtesy of the Daily Beast:
3. A bit of fun at the Saudi King’s expense, courtesy of Emma Sky:
For those interested in more serious fare, try the Ottaways’ Of Revolutions, Regime Change, and State Collapse in the Arab World – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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