The legal case of the late Doc Iggy

The legal case of the late Doc Iggy
October 31, 2023 | 12:02 am

My Cup Of Liberty
By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr.
https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2023/10/31/554570/the-legal-case-of-the-late-doc-iggy/

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MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT

The renewed Middle East conflict, particularly the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Palestine, is largely caused by two factors: the existence of non-Muslim Israel in the Middle East which many Palestinians and Iran do not recognize, and the endless war for oil by the US and many NATO countries.

I construct this table below showing oil production in thousand barrels per day (bpd), oil reserves, oil reserves/production (R/P) ratio or the number of years before the reserves will be depleted assuming current production (for domestic use and exports) continues. Then gas production in billion cubic meters (cu.m.) and gas R/P ratio.

In terms of oil reserves, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are the largest in the Middle East. In gas reserves, the largest are Iran and Qatar (Table 2).

The US has big oil reserves too but because it has huge domestic demand, its R/P ratio shows it can be depleted in just 11 years so they must import more oil from other countries and invade or occupy other oil-rich countries. Hence the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and occupation of oil- and gas-rich regions of Syria since 2014. Syria had a population of 21.4 million in 2010. No population data are available after that.

Iran is rich both in oil and gas. Despite decades of economic sanctions against it by the West, Iran has extra resources to arm itself and many militant movements in the region — Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq, among other groups.

To achieve peace in the Middle East and help stabilize global energy trade, I think one of the long-term solutions is for the US military to step back and for US diplomacy to step up. The Abraham Accords of peace agreements — Israel-UAE, Israel-Bahrain, Israel-Morocco, Israel-Sudan – initiated by Trump are good projects that should be continued.

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