Various levels of outrage and disgust have been vented across this section of the blogosphere lately (most notably from the esteemed Bill Quick) regarding Bush’s meeting with Saudi gasbag Prince Bandar at the President’s Texas ranch. While I can agree with the sentiment, I see one very valid reasons to temporarily placate the Saudis. They’re still important for the only reason they’ve ever been important: oil.

The Saudis are not our friends (quite the opposite, actually), but if we were to turn our military might on the Kingdom without replacement sources of oil, the short-term economic results could be disastrous. America would be hurt, but Europe would be unable to run truck transports for several months, and Japan would be completely fucked. Even if we can take the Saudi oil fields in a relatively orderly fashion (and even the best of military operations are rarely as clean as we’d like) we’re still looking at several months of confusion and chaos in the oil markets. The long term solution is Russian oil, but their production will take many years to increase to our needed levels.

However, I think a solution to our Saudi problem is already an inevitable destination: Iraq (source image swiped from the UK Times site, blue circles show the location and size of oil deposits)

Iraq is another of the world’s top oil producers. Its two biggest oil fields are near Basra in the south and Kirkuk, easily accessible from both the northern and southern no-fly zones. In any invasion of Iraq, these would almost certainly be second in line to be secured (after scud launchers). With a capacity of around 3 million barrels, Iraq has roughly 1/3 of Arabia’s capacity, but some analysts have estimated that, if invested in, Iraqi oil fields could produce almost 8 million barrels a day within 5 years, thus rivaling the Saudis.

My opinion is, after Saddam is gone, send in the Russian oil companies (with help from our boys) to dramatically improve Iraqi production. The Russians will be happy, getting all their soviet-era loans repaid and lots of new business to boot, the new Iraqi government will be happy, because the money flowing in will give them strength and stability, and the rest of the world, with the exception of OPEC and the eco-weenies, will be happy with new sources of oil.

However, even in the short term, and without an increase in production, a pro-western regime in Iraq, pumping oil at full capacity could substantially help us with our real goal in regards to the Saudis. We don’t need to invade Saudi Arabia, but to bankrupt it, and remove the funding for all the terrorists currently plotting to vaporize our cities.

Whether Bush is planning it or not, the long-term result of the invasion of Iraq will be to weaken the Saudi Regime’s control on world oil prices, and remove more and more of their revenue which could be turned against us. Keeping the Saudis happy for the next six months will help to destroy them within the next five years. And this is undoubtedly a good thing.