Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Chapter Nine: Oil and Gas 103air bases at Bushehr and Shiraz”—at most sixteen minutes’ flying time away. 19The Saudis have given Iraqi aircraft safe haven during the recent war withIran, and, with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, have bankrolled Iraq’swar effort to the tune of thirty-two billion dollars 20 . The Saudis therefore fearan Iranian attack, whether for revenge or to improve morale at home. Theynote that leading Iranian mullahs have called for the assassination of KingKhalid; that Iran was implicated in the attempted coup in Bahrain in January1982; that after two warning attacks, Iranian jets on 1 October 1981 set ablazea major Kuwaiti oil installation at Umm Aysli 21 ; and that Iran has fourteenhundred American air-to-ground missiles, together with a fleet of strike aircraftto deliver them (of which perhaps fifteen are still operable).The delivery of five E-3A Advanced Warning and Control System(AWACS) radar aircraft to Saudi Arabia will make possible sufficient warningof an Iranian attack for Saudi interceptors to make at least one short-rangepass and to alert onshore gun and missile defenses—providing the Saudis wereexpecting the attack. (Otherwise they would probably not have an AWACSairborne.) 22 But an attack by small surface vessels, submarines, or frogmen, oreven by missile-carrying helicopters (which Iran also has), would be invisibleto AWACS, whose sophisticated radar can detect airborne targets only if thymove faster than eighty knots. 23 There are several other ways, too, in whichIran could deceive AWACS surveillance. 24 The normal quick-reaction Saudiair cover is “rather ‘thin;’” 25 and “even a near miss at Ras Tanura could ignitesuccessive oil tank explosions and damage the basic pumping infrastructure.” 26(Certain key components, without which the Ras Tanura terminal cannotoperate, are so unique and hard to make that they could take up to three yearsto replace.) Sabotage from within is also a concern: “there has been labor andpolitical dissidence in the Eastern Provinces,” which contain at least a quarterof a million Shi’ite Moslems, “many of whom are dissatisfied with the [Saudi]regime and have hands-on experience with the oil production equipment andits vulnerabilities” 27 —as was illustrated by damage to “a crude-oil pumpinginstallation at or near Ras Tanura” in 1979. 28It is often forgotten that Libya’s leverage to begin the oil spiral came fromthe Suez Canal closure and destruction of a pipeline. 29 In 1977, a fire crippledthe oil gathering center at Abqaiq, at the north end of Saudi Arabia’s supergiantGhawar field, cutting off oil exports by the Arab-American OilCompany (ARAMCO) and sending tremors around the world. (Fortunately,temporary repairs bypassed the damage in ten days.) The fire was officiallycalled an accident, but some Saudis think it was an effort by guerrillas, “probablyguided by Iraq,” 30 to break Saudi moderation on oil prices, 31 and it wasreportedly foreseen in warnings which the Saudi government did not take