The Oil Wars: America's Dependency on Saudi Arabia Oil.

The Oil Wars: America's Dependency on Saudi Arabia Oil.

Saudi Arabia and the United States obviously don't share any borders and a distance of 7,520.31 miles between them. Yet the relationship with the United States was the building block of its foreign policy, and would eventually become its regional security policy as well. The special relationship with the United States actually dated to World War II. In the early 1940s. When the extent of Saudi oil resources had become known, and the United States petroleum companies that held the concession to develop the oil fields were urging Washington to assume more responsibility for security and political stability in the region. Consequently, in 1943 the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that the defense of Saudi Arabia was a vital interest to the United States and dispatched the first United States military mission into the kingdom.

In addition to providing training for the Saudi army, the United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed the airfield at Dhahran and other facilities. In 1945, Abd al Aziz and Roosevelt cemented the alliance in a meeting on a warship in the Suez Canal. I don't think either would realize with that one simple meeting would lead to future leaders of both Saudi Arabia and the United States to continue meeting. (Klare 2005)

Oil is the most sought after commodity in the world. The largest amount of the world's oil sources come from the Middle East specifically Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter. The United States and Middle East oil has been the most discussed topic since the 1970's. How does Saudi Arabia, oil, and US foreign policy go hand in hand? The subject of the interaction between U.S. foreign policy, and oil since World War I has been covered over various periods in both American and Saudi Arabian histories. The special relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia dates back to World War II. It was the early 1940's when the extent of Saudi oil resources became known. US petroleum companies were urging Washington to assume more responsibility for security and political stability of the region. Saudi Arabia has been depended on security from the U.S. before the meeting between King Aziz and FDR. (Klare 2005)

The agreement was that if the United States protected Saudi Arabia that in return for U.S. control over access to Saudi oil, Washington would guarantee the political, military, and economic security of the kingdom. (Bronson 2006) Because oil is such a useful substance those who could control it became very rich. As we saw with the original seven sister. It was the name given to them by Enrico Mattei who was the head of an Italian oil company. He was bitter because they turned him down for membership. The seven sisters were made up of oil companies from around the world. They carved up the world's oil market among themselves. From the 1920's to the 1960 their access to oil was limitless .They were: Standard oil of New Jersey (American Exxon Corp), Royal Dutch –Shell (Anglo Dutch), The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (English later BP), Texaco*(American), Socony-Mobil (American), Gulf* (American), Standard oil of California* (American), La Compangnie Française de Petroles** (French). (Marcel 2006)

In 1960 the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was created by 10 countries. The purpose was to set oil prices by controlling production. It was also put in place to control the seven sisters since they controlled 85% of the world's oil reserves, and to OPEC members they were considered intruders. (Klare 2005) Eventually with the creation of OPEC the conglomerate's all went independent due to the pressure from OPEC cutting their oil supply. (Sampson 1975) Since the 1970's there have been four historically documented oil embargos. The first is the Arab oil embargo of October 1973(Yom Kippur War) in which OPEC declared an embargo against the United States and Western Europe's support of Israel during the Arab-Israel conflict. The second was October of 1978 with the strike of Iranian oil workers.

The third was September of 1980 during the Iran- Iraq war. The fourth was August of 1990 with the Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. There were other factors such as the peak in oil production in the US and the devaluation of the U.S. dollar. The 1973 embargo lasted a year during the time which oil prices quadrupled. OPEC nations realized that oil was a valuable commodity, and it could be exploited and use oil as a political, and economic weapon and as a hefty bargaining chip against other countries. (Duffield 2008) At one time America imported nearly 14% of its crude oil from Saudi Arabia. To date according to the Energy Information Administration the United States has consumed roughly 210,000 barrels of oil. It is expected to grow to a total of over 30,000 barrels in 2014. (Administration 2013) It's been said that the United States led wars against Iraq in 1991 and in 2003. There aren't many topics as politically charged as to why the United States invaded Iraq. It could be based on several reasons including the need to find the stash of "Weapons of Mass Destruction." (That STILL hasn't been found to this day.) This was just a poly for George W. Bush (Son) administration to shift from searching for WMD to Iraq reforming the Middle East, and dealing with the Islamic radicalism. Not once did they say anything about protection of the oil sources and reserves. Some suspect that Dick Cheney is the critical force that drove us to Iraq to get the oil. (Bronson 2006) The war in Iraq is a decade long struggle for the United States to control Middle East oil. Control and domination was intended, but couldn't be achieved without direct appropriation of the Iraqi oil reserves by U.S. citizens. (Cooper 2011) Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait was a major conflict between Iraq and the state of Kuwait. It lasted seven months which lead to U.S. intervention. (Cooper 2011)

In August of 1990 the UN Security Council, and President George H.W. Bush (Father) deployed U.S. forces into Saudi Arabia also urging other countries to join. When the Iraqi military were retreating from Kuwait they set fire to over 600 oil wells, and created the largest oil spill dumping as much as eight million barrels into the gulf waters. It's been said that the United States led wars against Iraq in 1991 and in 2003. Former U.S. Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued that "The war has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil." (Klare 2005)

Some cast doubt on the importance of so called resource wars. OPEC got smart and realized they held all the cards as well as over 80% of the world's oil reserves, and could use it as a bargaining chip. (Cooper 2011) What helps is that the new seven sisters control almost 1/3 of the world's oil and gas production at the helm is Saudi Aramco the world's largest and most sophisticated national oil company, Gazprom (Russia), CNPC (China), NIOC (Iran), PDVSA (Venezuela), Petrobras (Brazil), and Petronas (Malaysia. (Hoyos 2007) There have been talks of oil shocks, and oil supplies could, or may run out. The future markets play a big role in price determination. If the prices drop it could cause problems for the new seven sisters like it did for the old seven sisters. It could also spook the markets making the oil companies into mass overproduction.

This has been an ongoing conflict since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and has spanned decades, presidents, coups, wars, millenniums so on and so on. Because the world not just the United States only is depended on Middle East oil someone is going to want to be at the head. It would be useful and important to think about how America went from the 1940's Getty oil deal in Saudi Arabia to invading Iraq, and changing its government. (Sampson 1975) Even King Faisal tried to use oil blackmail and threats of nationalization to motivate American oil companies to lobby Nixon to change U.S. foreign toward Israel as we can see he was unsuccessful.

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