A Better Way To Lower The Price Of Gas
Posted by Phoenix Woman on May 6, 2008
Try to bring peace to a war-torn gas supplier. Seriously. (h/t Ben Smith):
Rebels who have stepped up attacks on Nigeria’s oil industry in the last month said on Sunday they were considering a ceasefire appeal by U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has launched five attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta since it resumed a campaign of violence in April, forcing Royal Dutch Shell to shut more than 164,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).
“The MEND command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem,” the militant group said in an e-mailed statement.
If Obama can pull this off, he’ll have done more than Bush could to lower the price of gas — and saved a few thousand lives in the bargain. (Remember how Bush said we should vote for him because he could talk the Saudis into lowering gas prices? How’d that work out, eh?)
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Stormcrow said
Well, it’s a better idea than another basically hopeless war.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for something positive here. The problem with MEND is the same general sort as the one in Iraq. It’s also the same issue that Machiavelli discussed when he wrote about the relative problems of dealing with unitary nation-states versus snakepits full of feudal baronies.
When you cut a deal with a nation-state, you have some reason to believe it’ll be honored for as long as both nation-states consider that wise. That could be decades or days, depends. But you have one and only one set of people on the other side of the table who have authority to bind their side’s actions.
With a conglomeration of factions, forgetaboutit.
You can’t defeat this on a battlefield because even if you “win”, there’s no unitary authority on the other side with the authority to call quits on their end.
You have the same problem with a negotiated settlement. There’s no authority that can bind the factions on the other side of the table to any given result.
Which means that about 30 seconds after you both exit the room, your pact is going to be violated. No matter how much good will exists between the signatories.
Given that MEND is in the picture and that it is not going to go away anytime soon, I think we had better plan on just writing off the Niger Delta for the foreseeable future. We can have a lot of fun trying for a better result than this, but our chances of actually seeing anything better are poor to nil.
Phoenix Woman said
Oh, exactly. This will be a very, very tough thing to pull off. But I’m glad he cares enough to try, especially in the midst of a knife-fight to the death with Hillary Clinton. Plus, Obama has three things in his corner: his experience as an organizer and local Chicago politican, the fact that he has an African father, and the fact that he’s not George W. Bush.
Stormcrow said
Mmm – the only one of those three factors that counts is the third one.
I’d add another one, though. One that I’m coming to see as Obama’s characteristic approach to political conflict: (i) distance yourself, (ii) enlarge the frame, (iii) counter from a larger frame than your adversary.
I just hope that Barack Obama isn’t one of those people with a bad case of “Pangborn’s Disease”. He has still not demonstrated whether he is prone to this or not. But up against MEND, or, for that matter, any basically tribal or factional negotiation, that’s unqualified disaster.
“Pangborn’s Disease” is my internal nomenclature for a pathological refusal to understand that human beings can be, and very often are, genuinely and fundamentally evil. If you’ve read very much of Edgar Pangborn’s fiction, you know what I’m talking about.
It was just about the only besetting sin that Jimmy Carter was prone to.
Phoenix Woman said
Since Obama’s spent most of the last three decades in Chicago, I think he knows full well that some humans just aren’t reachable. But a surprising number of them are.
Death of a Politician « The Mississippifarian said
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