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This is Democracy Now, DemocracyNow.org, The War and Peace Report.
I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzales, with part two of our look at war and oil with Antonio
Ujas, independent investigative journalist, regular rolling stone politics reporter author
of several books on the fossil fuel industry, including the Bush agenda and the tyranny
of oil.
I want to begin this continuation of our discussion by playing you a clip of the well-known war
hawk, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, being interviewed on Fox News
over the weekend.
Yeah.
Venezuela and Iran have 31% of the world's oil reserves.
We're going to have a partnership with 31% of the known reserves.
This is China's nice mayor, nightmare.
This is a good investment and we should applaud our men and women in the military for doing
something I've never seen done before, decimating a brutal enemy in nine days.
That's Senator Lindsey Graham.
Antonio Ujas says he responds to oil for wars for oil, from Venezuela to Iran.
If you can lay out oil geopolitics and what is actually happening here.
Yeah, I mean, let's remember that after Iraq, Iran was always next on the Bush administration's
agenda for war.
Bush was building up to a second wave of the war in Iran for years and planning for it
and meaning to go forth with it.
But then the Iraq war was so disastrous and particularly the public was so done with
war and done with that war and certainly had no stomach for a second front that the
Republicans could not move on into Iran and the war probably cost Republicans the presidency.
U.S. oil interests lobbied aggressively to pursue oil on their terms in Iraq and Iran,
driving the invasion of Iraq, lobbying aggressively to see a second front in the war in Iran.
As I have written repeatedly about war in the Middle East, oil is a key agenda but
of course driving a country like the United States to war is never a simple thing and
it's never just one thing and of course Israel and the interests of Israel go side by side
with that agenda.
It's how do you, how do the pressures that want to see a military invasion take place?
Get that invasion to go.
It's meeting a series of interests by a series of players that certainly oil and oil companies,
not necessarily securing oil wealth, quote unquote, for the United States, but securing
oil wealth for oil companies has driven the wars in Iraq, has driven a war in Iran and
certainly help drive the war in Venezuela where Trump has now literally said literally we're
going to take the oil.
What has happened in Venezuela is actually sort of fascinating and you can somewhat understand
based on Trump's, I guess, limited worldview of how he can accomplish the things he wants
for himself and the people who support him and whose interests he's trying to support.
Thought perhaps that because Venezuela worked easily for him that Iran would work similarly
and one of the ways that Venezuela worked easily was that all Trump cared about was getting
in a pliable government and that's what he has said he also wants in Iran.
It means a lot of things, including when the U.S. invaded Iraq, one of the goals was getting
the Iraqis to change their national oil law to essentially privatize the industry, not
totally but sort of.
The Iraqis wouldn't go along with it.
U.S. oil companies got the type of contracts that they want and they got into Iraq so they
did okay.
But in Venezuela, right after Trump removed the president of Venezuela within two weeks time,
the Venezuelans implemented a very similar new national oil law and one of the reasons
why that happened was after Trump removed the president of Venezuela, he had that now
historic gathering of oil company executives at the White House.
A lot of press was paid to one word that Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon, mobile said that
Venezuela is uninvestable.
What got a lot less attention was the words that followed that which he said, but we think
it would be fine if we can get the terms that we want and one of those key terms we want
is a new national oil law in Venezuela and the Venezuelans quickly agreed and put in
place a new law and now U.S. oil companies are lining up and getting ready, some are already
in and signing deals and increasing production in Venezuela because they were able to get
what they wanted on their own terms.
The idea that Iran could be that simple is frankly ludicrous but you could see that perhaps
the Trump folks persuaded by Netanyahu to go to war felt that perhaps this is something
they could also accomplish and I think Trump still thinks he can accomplish.
I think he is obviously speaking with Putin, Putin has influence over the Iranians, perhaps
they are figuring out some sort of deal because what Trump clearly underestimated was the
power that the Iranians have and how that is so significantly different from the Venezuelans
and part of that is of course their control within the region not only won their military
but their control within the region and their ability to control not just their own significant
oil reserves but the reserves of almost the entire region and what the impact of that
would mean globally.
I think the Trump administration mostly didn't care and thought that it could weather whatever
these harms might be but I'm not sure that that is going to be the case that plays out.
Until you wanted to ask you about something that's not directly connected to oil but
certainly influenced by it or energy which is that the Middle East has also emerged especially
the Gulf states as a major center of the developing worldwide artificial intelligence infrastructure.
In December the State Department issued what they call Pax Silica which was supposedly
declaration by 11 countries mostly in the Gulf states but also including Israel that they
were coordinating the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure and most people are
not aware that Saudi Arabia is home to 61 data centers and the UAE to 57 data centers.
So this whole region has emerged as a major center for the build out of artificial
artificial intelligence infrastructure and the Iranians knowing that targeted several data
centers in their attacks or sending a signal to the worldwide investment community that there
is another weakness in the chain of imperial domination which is not just oil but also their
artificial intelligence build out and wondering your thoughts about that.
No I mean I think that's very interesting I think obviously artificial intelligence takes
an enormous amount of fossil fuels so it's not surprising that you see these two you know
interests align it takes an enormous quantity of fossil fuels fossil fuel power fossil fuel energy
to power these data centers and they are you know they go hand in hand the fossil fuel industry has
also by the way I think used the belief in the necessity of the vast expansion of data centers
as justification for its continued existence if it can convince the world that it needs all of
these data centers and it can convince the world that it needs the power to keep them going and
that fossil fuels have yet another reason to continue on when we know that in most other
circumstances we have excellent ways of moving past fossil fuels entirely to more sustainable
significantly less frail and fragile systems that fossil fuels clearly offer so I think you know
it's not surprising that these two power bases are being built upside by side but also present
another weakness a weakness that the Iranians are taking advantage of in their retaliation.
Wondering Antonio Ujas if you can talk about Russia and China right now some have even suggested
that attacking Iran was a way to prevent China from continuing to get cheap Iranian oil and then
you have Trump apparently saying he's going to be lifting sanctions on Russia on India
which they forced not to take Russian oil which now rides on oil tankers around the world
and now saying they can because of his fear of the markets plummeting. Can you talk about
how much oil China uses what this means for Russia on the one hand relying on Russian oil
then on the other hand getting anti drone technology from Ukraine they're the experts in it
because they're trying to attack the drones that Russia is sending over Ukraine and bombing them.
Sure so there's been significant sanctions placed on Iranian oil sanctions that the U.S. oil
industry has been anxious to see removed and if not the sanctions removed then the regime
removed so that U.S. oil companies could get in and start taking advantage of Iranian oil
but the only nation that currently is able to primarily receive Iranian oil is the Chinese.
I honestly think the removing oil from the Chinese is certainly probably an interest of some
people who have backed the war but I don't believe it to be a real dominant interest because
let me just give one example in Venezuela for example one of the key benefits of removing
Maduro for Exxon mobile in Chevron was that Maduro was blocking their biggest pot of oil when
their biggest pots of oil in the world which is in Guyana waters that Venezuela claims as its own
Exxon and Chevron are developing and it's a critically important pot of oil for them
and Maduro had literally gone after that oil with warships and and trying to claim that oil
as his and now he's gone and that area is now presumably going to be opened up well guess who
they're partnering with in that big pot of oil in Guyana the Chinese the Chinese are their
primary partner U.S. oil companies partner with Chinese oil companies all the time all over the
world they're not in competition with the Chinese they are literally partnering with the Chinese
Trump said when he went to Venezuela you know one of the things he was going to do was start selling
the oil and he was ready to sell it to the Chinese and sell it to the Russians.
Trump has clearly aligned himself with with Putin and one of the key elements of their alliance
is the dedication to a continued fossil fueled economy. So Trump has relieved sanctions on Russia
already to make sure that its oil can continue to flow because sanctions placed on Russia as a
result of the invasion of Ukraine to try and lessen its ability to fund its war machine have been
succeeding they have weakened the economic wherewithal of the of the Russians of course it's
important to say the people who suffer the most from sanctions are the people of Russia because
the economic cost gets most aggressively placed on them but it is also I'm taking its taking its
toll on the Russian budget to continue to fund its continued war against Ukraine so it is very good
for Russia to come up with a deal with Trump that alleviates those sanctions which is a key goal
and Trump actually said yesterday you know first he said these are short term it's a short term
relief on those sanctions then he said but maybe they'll be so much peace that the sanctions can
be removed altogether that's what he said. So he's obviously talking with Putin about how
to try and bring an end to this conflict in whatever way works best for the two of them and then
of course with Netanyahu and so who knows what that's going to look like nothing nothing good I
would imagine. So what I think is at the bottom line for Trump and Putin and also I would add
Mohammed bin Salman into this threesome of power of Saudi Arabia is a world that remains committed
to fossil fuels and that is clearly an interest that aligns these three governments the Iranians
know this and they are using that as a tool to go right at the heart of that fossil fuel reliance
and again this shows just the weakness of fossil fuel dependence because fossil fuels are concentrated
they're very easy to attack they're very frail they are sensitive to things like weather instability
wars and you can go after them and also cause great harm to people the environment and the climate
as a result they're also as we've seen with oil markets again very very volatile the movement the
extreme movements in the price of oil shows that the price of oil is set not really by supply and
demand because right now there hasn't been a significant reduction in actual supply to certain
places there have been but not globally and the market is responding to an expectation of future
supply loss and that's why we're seeing the price go up and down go up and down so rapidly well
those up and downs have real impacts on real people's lives so the price of gasoline has also skyrocketed
with that price of oil and that is impacting consumers in the United States who are already
suffering from rising electricity costs that are also the result of the Trump administration's
rejection of renewables the adoption of data centers that need more energy want as you've indicated
and now a war that is causing gas prices to spike dramatically and that impacts real people
of course the you know a rise in the price price of gas is nothing compared to the death and
destruction that's happening to Iranians across the Middle East but it's a real price that again
is being born because of the way that fossil fuels are so easily manipulated and so easily used
as as bludgeons of war and and are the you know the chosen tool of autocrats everywhere
and Tonya war itself in terms of this the long-term view of humanity's efforts to reduce its
the planet's reliance on fossil fuels every time one of these war mobilizations occurs especially
by the United States all these ships into a region all these planes moved and constantly attacking
the need to replenish ammunition supplies what does this say in terms of of the ability to to
control or to reduce the climate catastrophe we face yeah of course there's there's an enormous
climate tool just of the functioning of militaries in in their regular operations and of course as you
say you know this mass mobilization causes significant use of fossil fuels and release of climate
destroying pollution and you know we saw that quite visually on display again with these attacks
by the Israelis backed by the Americans of the oil depots in Tehran releasing those toxic clouds
of smoke people in Iran reported night the day turning to night because the clouds were so thick
and then as I said the rain then pouring through those clouds bringing the acid toxic rain those
are also climate destroying chemicals being released into the air and significantly more intensely
when it's when it's burned as we all know the Trump administration has worked aggressively to
eliminate as much as possible the tools that were have been put in place over decades to
combat the worsening climate crisis and of course to remove the tools for renewable energy the
big beautiful bill as it's known solidified a lot of that work by the Trump administration and by
the fossil fuel industry to remove regulations and legal tools that have been used to reduce their
pollution both their immediate human health causing pollution and also their climate causing pollution
US so members of the Trump administration are repeating almost word for word actually
justifications that were used explanations that were used by the first bush in the first
Iraq war HW Bush and also by the second Bush administration where they stated
one of the things we're trying to do is remove the power that control over fossil fuels gives our
enemies and the Trump administration is saying the same thing well that that power that ability
to abuse power from fossil fuels is also being wielded by the Trump administration Trump continually
reiterates you know now the United States produces enough oil and gas that we don't have to worry
about changes in supply coming from around the world so our production of fossil fuels is a power
that we have but that power is just as weak as as it was in the 70s when the United States was
more reliant on imports and the Israeli Arab Israeli war and the nationalizations of oil and
Iran caused great harm in the United States including lines for gasoline well now we don't have
to worry necessarily about supply although I will say that Exxon mobile has just shipped a significant
amount of refined gasoline from the US Gulf Coast to Australia because they have a contract
with the Australians and they can't get their product out of the Middle East to Australia so
they're shipping it from the United States to Australia so if we see more of that we could see
issues related to supply but even if we have that supply we're still reliant on a global price
of oil that impacts the price of gasoline and could have the same effect if people are priced
out of being able to purchase gasoline or home heating then it's the same effect of an actual
reduction and reliance on supply so that power gets wielded primarily against people who
are the weakest you know in society but also against governments that think it's going to be
a tool that's going to strengthen them but can also expose a tremendous weakness and then of course
the cost of a worsening climate are borne by absolutely everybody.
Antonia you have to want to thank you so much for being with us independent investigative
journalists regular rolling stone politics reporter author of several books including the Bush
agenda and the tyranny of oil to see part one of our discussion with Antonia go to democracy now
I'm Amy Goodman with Juan González thanks for joining us
