[I see Zandar1 had this first]
It’s kind of a running joke among progressives that the American people will tolerate almost any level or crime, corruption, or stupidity in their public officials, but if gas prices get too high, there’s going to be trouble. I don’t own a car and I drive as little as possible. But I still hear people complaining about gas prices. It appears that the Republicans have decided there’s one last ace in the hole for maintaining domestic support for the war in Iraq. Rep. Jon Porter of Nevada explains:
Gasoline prices could rise to about $9 per gallon if the United States withdraws troops from Iraq prematurely, Rep. Jon Porter said he was told on a trip to Iraq that ended this week.
The Nevada Republican, who returned Tuesday from his fourth trip to Iraq, met with U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Iraqi Deputy President Tariq al-Hashimi and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.
“To a person, they said there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaida would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world if we leave,” Porter said Wednesday in a phone interview from Las Vegas.
Porter did not elaborate on the assessment that gasoline prices could spike. His spokesman, Matt Leffingwell, said afterward that the scenario “makes sense if Iran moves into Iraq.”
Porter “can’t speculate directly on what is going to happen with gas prices, but the market prices for oil reflect the stability in that region,” Leffingwell said.
If that happened it would be disruptive. A typical gastank holds 13 gallons. At $9/gallon that would mean a cost of $117 for every fill-up. Of course, Porter is just talking out of his ass. He went on his trip to Iraq with Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California and Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia. Here’s what Tauscher had to say:
Tauscher, in a telephone interview from Iraq, said the group met Saturday with the
surge’s architect, Gen. David Petraeus, and with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.“They obviously are advocates for the surge, they have a lot of data that shows more American troops on the ground, in those places where they are, create more stability,” she said. “Not surprisingly, when you have the finest fighting force in the world and you add more of them, you get more security.”
But those tactical advances aren’t producing strategic progress, she said she told Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurdish politician. “He is somebody that we really think is a pretty savvy guy … but I delivered him a pretty stiff assessment,” she said.
Based on what she has seen and heard before and during this trip, “we really don’t think that they have used the time (provided by the surge) wisely or productively,” Tauscher said she told Salih. “I tried to be as frank and as fair as I could be but also to deliver the message that we’re deeply disappointed” with the Iraqi government’s lack of progress on vital issues such as sharing oil revenues with the Iraqi people and implementing legislation on de-Ba’athification reform, she said.
“Not surprisingly, he blamed a lot on the Sunnis and their inability to coalesce around a leader and give that leader empowerment to make decisions that will stick,” she said. “He made a very impassioned plea not to abandon them, to stick with them. … These are all very sobering arguments, but in the end I told him I didn’t support the surge because I didn’t see enough political activity toward reconciliation.”
Rep. Moran was more persuadable…or maybe he was just engaging in punditry.
In Baghdad on Saturday, just hours after his own meeting with General Petraeus, James P. Moran, a Virginia Democrat and senior member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, also said he was impressed with the presentation. “Based on the outline,” Mr. Moran said, “I just don’t see Congress pulling up stakes.”
In any case, they neither Tauscher nor Moran said a thing about $9/gallon gas. But let’s make this a simple question. How far in debt should this country go, and how many lives should we sacrifice, just to put off the potential for a disruptive spike in gas prices?
For a number of reasons, I view 9$/gallon gas as inevitable, no matter what happens in Iraq. Even if we could turn back the hands of time and not invade Iraq, it would still be inevitable. See http://www.theoildrum.com for my reasons. Or boiled down to a simple poster, see http://www.oilposter.org.
I have been working on reducing my fuel consumption. For me this summer has been very atypical, but normally I can go nearly 3 weeks on one 15 gallon tank of (diesel) fuel, which takes me about 700 miles. I am going to start riding my bike to work a day or two a week – both to reduce the size of my gut, and to reduce fuel consumption a bit more.
What this means to me is that Democrats once again got steamrolled by bigoted and invasive authoritarian Republicans when we chose our committee chairs. The GOP, fearing a black man who would attend to fundamental rights, jawed about what a bad man Alceee Hastings was and how the Democrats couldn’t let him be chair of the Intel committee. So, as a result, we got the solid granite brained terminally stupid rollover for Bush twit Sylvester Reyes. Oh, and we the got the “Protect America Act”. What a deal.
I am surprissed because Iraq’s oil production has not been that much for the last four years
By the way, I checked the oil prices in Venezuela and they are 7 cents a liter which makes it 28 cents a gallon!!
If you think that this is their last ace you are out of your bloody mind. You have been passed already- WMD found! billjpa
Booman, glad to see that I’m not the only one who leads a car-free life.
BTW, Bowers and Atrios lead car-free lives, too.
It’s called Philly Car Share.
While the $9/gallon scare tactic has no effect on me, it’s worth pointing out that the price of gasoline is the least of our worries if the price of petroleum goes up. All manufactured goods will become more expensive, both because of transportation costs and because all plastics are made from petroleum. Food prices will go through the roof, transportation costs aside, because fertilizers and pesticides are largely produced from petroleum feedstock.
Getting off the petroleum habit is going to involve a lot more than switching to public transportation. It will involve a sweeping social and technological revolution. Or, if we wait until the last minute, as we seem pretty determined to do, our petroleum-based civilization will come down like a house of cards. In either case, voluntary conservation measures are not going to be sufficient.
You are absolutely right – I don’t drive all that much, so personally gas prices don’t mean much. But if food were to start going through the roof, I would be in a world of trouble.
this is total BS…
as cruz noted above, iraqi oil exports haven’t regained or risen beyond the pre-invasion levels, and are unlikely to do so until we’re gone.
BushCo™ wants the Oil Law, and this has everything to do with that, and keeping a large military presence, ie: keep the violence flowing…until they get it.
it’s highly likely that leaving iraq, combined with not turning iran into a glass parking lot, would ease the flow of oil. this is laughably inane and counter intuitive…Bah!
the first step in solving this problem, as it has been since last november is to lTMF’sA, and get the hell out.
I agree that this is BS and simple but effective propaganda. Oil prices went after we invaded Iraq and they’ll really go up if we invade Iran.
The Neocons know this but they never let the facts get in the way of a good PR campaign.
And WTF do they think will happen if we bomb Iran? Gas will get cheaper?
Not cheaper, but slightly radioactive.
Of course,Porter supports wholeheartedly (in his case, though, it should be “holeheartedly”) an attack on Iran which will guarantee a $9 per gallon gasoline price. This fool should be forced to take a look at a map to see whose border controls the north shore of the body of water through which all of those liquid hydrocarbons flow. I hope he understands that Iran has to get lucky hitting a ship in the Strait of Hormuz only once to shut the conveyor belt down.
I’m thinking there has to be a secret 101 room somewhere that all rethugs go to learn their own peculiar brand of logic. It must go something like this-real logic and critical thinking are explained and then told this is actually wrong so they have to come up with completely opposite ‘logics’.
that US inventories of gasoline are the lowest ever recorded.
Huh.
http://www.theoildrum.com/
$9 gas will here eventually – but will it be here by Christmas if we don’t stay in Iraq???
I don’t think so, but the lie needs to be big enough to attract attention, soooo …. $9 it is.