Persistent Myths XII: The "It's all about oil" edition.

The "It's all about oil" edition.

There's a persistent belief in the US that every conflict in the Middle East is about petroleum oil, and that's because every single nation in the Middle East is swimming in petroleum oil and vastly wealthy.  If non Middle Eastern nations are tied up in the affairs, including the wars, of the Middle East, that's because they want the war.    Some even tie past actions of various nations from many decades past to a desire to control oil, such as everything the UK did during World War One in the Middle East was due to its insatiable desire for oil.

Sorry, this just doesn't match the facts.

Oh, some thing in the Middle East definitely are about oil, no doubt.  And the Western importing nations have always been more careful to pay attention to the oil exporting nations than those that didn't have a commodity to export.  But then, paying attention to a nation that produces a necessary export commodity is something all nations have done at all times.

But a lot in the Middle East happens that has nothing at all to do with oil  And a lot of the Middle East is completely devoid of oil.

That last fact alone comes as a shock to a lot of people, but it's quite true.  Indeed, twice this past week I've seen events in Syria tied to oil. Well, Syria produces only a small amount of oil, about 28,000 bbls/day.  In contrast, the US produces over 3,000,000 bbls/day, Saudi Arabia over 9,000,000 bbls/day and Russia over 10,000,000 bbls/day.  They aren't fighting over Syria's small production, and the various outside forces that back one side or another don't have oil in the forefront of their minds either.  Shoot, Russia (and Iran) have tended to back the Syrian government, and they're both awash in oil.

And Syria isn't alone.  Jordon, a nation we hear about frequently in the region, isn't really an oil producer either.  Neither is Egypt.  Indeed, much of the Middle East is pretty devoid of appreciable oil production.

And frankly, oil doesn't matter like it once did.  It mattered more before the substantial Russian production, the greatest in the world, came on line and before new technology made the United States the third largest producer in the world.  The US now produces so much oil that, combined with other fuel sources, it's now a net energy exporter and it appears that the US will reenter the petroleum exporting countries.  Beyond that, we seem to be entering a period of flat demand, due to technological rather than economic, reasons such that oil will never resume the place in the global economy it once had.

Where oil demand should really matter is with developing nations, and not all that long ago there was serious concern that China was acting to tie up future supplies. But China itself is the world's fourth largest oil producer and it appears to be on the cusp of technological changes that will reduce its need for fossil fuels.

All of this is not to say that oil isn't important, and that people don't fight on it. But the common simple response of "it's all about the oil" is simply wrong, almost always.  Indeed, some of the places we have been involved in that have oil, if we were thinking of our own economy, we'd have been better off not getting involved with.