Lube Job II
Downblog last night, abb1 commented
Anyhow, I’m sure they have enough fuel for the military, so if there’s not enough for you when the war starts - hey, just another reason to hate evil Ahmadinejad.
I don’t think the US government is stockpiling yet more oil in the SPR to make sure the Pentagon doesn’t run out during a war with Iran. I think they may be stockpiling oil in hopes of cushioning any election-year price shocks a war causes. Then the administration expects to look far-sighted and empathetic when it announces strategic-reserve releases simultaneuously (or nearly so) with the bombing campaign - a classic case of government showily "solving" a problem it caused in the first place. (Such things really do happen!)
How well this plan can work depends, I suppose, on the impact of any US-Iran war on the flow of oil to American refineries. Could American refineries absorb and process any flow from the SPR? For that matter, can the SPR pump oil back out at a fast enough rate to offset any supply interruption a war would cause.
Imagine the political economics of how such a release could work: The White House announces that it will provide SPR petroleum to oil companies at below-market rates, maybe even free, or "at cost." The oil companies pocket a lot of windfall profit, but also temporarily lower gas prices (relatively) during the election season. The Republican Party has then managed to
- Embroil the country in a new war, with the hoped-for "rally round the flag" effect;
- Look "foresighted" by being prepared for the supply interruption;
- Provide a financial benefit to its energy-industry cronies by giving them value (in oil) that taxpayers underwrote in the first place (through taxes and interest payments on the debt);
- Possibly achieve lower gas prices during an election season.
Or: Started a war it wanted in the first place; Given what it hopes will be two boosts to Republican electoral prospects; Settled a bennie on a favored industry. I’m leaving the international consequences aside on the theory that the administration doesn’t care.
How can you go wrong with a plan like that!
So is that really the deal? Maybe not. The default government behavior for most of the last quarter-century has been to add stock to the SPR. The program could simply be on auto-pilot. And there’s the very large factual question of whether the refinery infrastructure supports the cunning plan that could not possibly fail that I’m attributing to them.
Comment by ajay —
April 29, 2008 @ 9:19 am
There’s not going to be a war with Iran. People started talking about this in October 03 and the talk picked up again every six months, whenever there was a carrier rotation in the Gulf. It’s not going to happen. It’s fun to make up theories like this, but one shouldn’t make the mistake of getting worried about them as if they were true - just like it’s fun to read books about alien invasions of Earth, but it would be stupid to fund space defences.
Comment by Alex —
April 29, 2008 @ 9:20 am
Alternatively, all signals are read by the Henley as implying the imminent invasion of Iran, so this actually contains no information.
Comment by Tim —
April 29, 2008 @ 10:03 am
Well, the SPR is 2/3 heavy sour and 1/3 light sweet, so the majority of the refineries in the U.S. would be SOL after a couple of months. That’s assuming you find a way to get it to the coastal refineries.
The refineries processing Venezuelan crude could handle the heavy stuff, but I think they are still partly owned by Venezuela so you might have to nationalize them.
Comment by R. Stanton Scott —
April 29, 2008 @ 10:34 am
The Republican Party would get no electoral benefit from an attack on Iran. Such an attack would only improve Democratic chances.
Comment by Barry —
April 29, 2008 @ 10:43 am
“The Republican Party would get no electoral benefit from an attack on Iran. Such an attack would only improve Democratic chances. ”
(a) That’s an assumption, and might not be true, depening on the timing. I’d do it close to the election.
(b) If McCain is clearly losing by so much in Sept/Oct that it’s a Democratic landslide (including Congress), there’d be little to lose by a pre-election war.
(c) If McCain loses, then a ‘lame duck war’ would be a good FU shot at the country, from people who’ve a seven year record of both FU-ing the country and not caring what havoc they wreak. It might even be a good long-term strategic move for the GOP - given a Democratic president and Congress in ‘09, leaving them with the maximum sh*tpile to deal with increases GOP chances in 2012, and maybe 2010.
And it’s not like a Demcratic government would take revenge on the GOP even if Bush & Co left them a steaming pile of sh*t which made the present look good.
Comment by abb1 —
April 29, 2008 @ 11:22 am
They manipulate gas prices in every election. I remember it well, the prices went up - rather dramatically, in fact - in the summer 2000 (I think Clinton was considering distributing a part of the reserve when it happened) and sharply down in 2004. And they don’t really need the reserves, they only need to make a phone call to their buddy, the crown prince.
Comment by sglover —
April 29, 2008 @ 2:23 pm
I’ve always thought that the most worrisome logic for an attack on Iran is independent of Republican fortunes. I fear that Bush/Cheney might be convinced that an attack is necessary, but hobbled by domestic political considerations. The “patriotic” thing for them to do, then, might be to present the country with a fait accompli, and let the next administration sort it out. It’s pretty much how they approach every other problem they’ve spawned, no?
It probably wouldn’t help McCain, but then Bush and Cheney have never really shown a speck of interest in the fortunes of “their” party. They’re not unique in this: Outside of some fundraising, once he was in the White House Clinton didn’t do a damn thing for the Democratic Party.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 29, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
About whether an Iran war helps the Repubs or not. I should have taken it beyond a “rally round” effect. Attacking Iran lets them keep up their story about Iraq - that everything about Iraq that sucks, sucks because of Iran. “And now we’re dealing with that.” Not only does it further their narrative, the narrative may even bring them to a “put up or shut up” place, where attacking Iran becomes necessary to convince people they believe their own story.
And the Dems will, if past experience predicts future results, be feckless about calling bullshit on any attack.
Comment by TGGP —
April 29, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
I’m also betting there will be no war with Iran by the time Bush leaves office.
Comment by Doug M. —
April 29, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
I’ve already bet there won’t be — Jim, Neel, Thoreau and I have some money riding on it.
Doug M.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
April 30, 2008 @ 10:19 am
I think Doug is right, actually, but figure that having a prod to give to charity is a good thing.