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From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Michael Klare, an emeritus professor of peace and security studies at Hampshire College.
The U.S.-Israel joint war against Iran has shaken global energy markets, closed the Strait of Hormuz and restricted the flow of oil and natural gas worldwide.
It’s the latest conflict over Iranian oil, but the growing emergence of fossil-free energy sources is prompting visions of ending our decades of dependence on oil, with its pollution and inevitable wars.
Michael Klare is an emeritus professor of peace and security studies at Hampshire College and the defense correspondent for The Nation magazine. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
STEVE CURWOOD: For years, you’ve written about the problems of war and the environment and such. What’s new about this one?
MICHAEL KLARE: Ten or 15 years ago, I would have said by now we would be weaned off oil, or we would have been on a slide downwards from oil. We were talking that by 2025 we would have reached peak oil, meaning peak world oil demand, and be in decline, and renewables would be the dominant fuel.
But it hasn’t turned out that way. We find a world that’s still terribly dependent on oil and natural gas for its energy supply. When that’s cut off with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, there’s a global energy crisis. It’s hard to believe how dependent we remain on petroleum after all these years.
CURWOOD: In the 1920s, the U.K. went to Kirkuk, it’s part of Iraq now, and started the British Petroleum Company and worldwide petroleum sales. And of course, there was also a conflict then. To what extent does this planet go to war because we use oil?
KLARE: If you look at the historical record, there’s no question that the pursuit of oil has been a major factor in conflict since [U.K. Prime Minister Winston] Churchill’s era, when Churchill determined that the British Navy should be powered by oil instead of coal, and nationalized the British Petroleum Company. But as you noted, it started out in the Middle East.
Michael Klare is an emeritus professor of peace and security studies at Hampshire College.
Since then, oil has been a factor in most wars, one way or the other. When I taught about this, I would go through this history at length, but turning to current times, the Trump administration’s attack on Venezuela, that was directly about oil. Trump wants the U.S. to be able to run Venezuela’s oil industry. And now in Iran—Iran is the fourth-leading oil producer—and the whole Persian Gulf area is the world’s leading producer of oil. You can’t separate oil from the strategic equation.
In this case, I would say it’s not that the U.S. is attempting to seize oil in the sense of procuring it for our own use, but rather, this is about controlling the flow of oil around the world, because so much of it—a fifth of world oil and natural gas—leaves the Persian Gulf. Whoever controls the Strait of Hormuz really controls the global oil flow and thereby controls the world economy. I think it’s the strategic control of the oil flow that’s the critical underlying factor in the war with Iran. So oil is still a powerful factor in driving and sustaining warfare.
CURWOOD: Some suggest that when there is conflict around oil, the fossil fuel companies make more money. When the price of gas goes up at the pump for oil that was already pulled out of the ground, it seems to make those fossil fuel companies richer. In fact, in some places, there are so-called windfall profit taxes. To what extent do you think the private profit-making interest of the fossil fuel industry is a driver of the wars that we are seeing?
KLARE: I would say historically, that was an important factor. But more importantly, it was first about the possession of oil fields. Historically, the United States was highly dependent on imported oil from Venezuela, from Mexico and especially from the Middle East, and those oil fields were owned by American companies. So at first, it was ownership of oil fields that drove wars. The U.S. was unwilling to allow other countries to own those fields, control those fields, or for governments to nationalize them.
A very clear case of that was in 1951 when the Iranians elected a nationalist prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who nationalized the British Petroleum holdings in Iran. At that time, it was the leading oil producer in the world. Then the U.S. conspired with the British to overthrow Mosaddegh and to install the Shah, the autocratic ruler who was brought in in 1953, 1954 by the CIA, and he ruled as a dictator for another 15 years or so, suppressing the Iranian clergy who then formed an opposition movement against him and finally overthrew the Shah in 1979, 1980. That’s the regime, or their successors, who now rule in Tehran, and because of this history of repression under the U.S.-backed Shah, they have a bitter, deep hatred of the United States. But this is all to do with the ownership of oil, the possession of oil.
Now, what the oil companies want more than anything is to slow the transition to renewable fuels. I think they’re less concerned with current profits, as you were suggesting, than with ensuring that governments do not adopt policies to wean us off our dependence on oil.
In the wake of this crisis we’re in, there’s going to be a lot of pressure in many countries around the world, hopefully in this one too, to say this dependence on oil has gotten us in this trouble that we’re in now, and the rising gasoline prices, and so the sooner we transition away from oil, the better off we’ll be. But that’s where the fight is going to lie.
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CURWOOD: Well, in the previous oil choke points, the various embargoes, there was no alternative with renewable energy. But this time, it’s different.
KLARE: Yes, indeed, we’re very well aware that there are alternatives. In light of this crisis, hopefully people in countries around the world will say, maybe this is a wake-up call for us to accelerate that process.
CURWOOD: Here in the United States, we have a federal government that is actively pushing against the advancement of renewable and clean energy technologies like wind and electric vehicles. And as you say, this war is revealing how disruptive relying on fossil fuels can be. How do you circle that square?
KLARE: This is a predicament that our country has found itself in as a result of the Trump administration’s reversal of moves that were being taken under the previous administration to accelerate the transition to green energy. President Trump has disrupted all of those efforts, has blocked wind power and solar power. He’s determined to perpetuate the oil age for as long as possible, and to perpetuate U.S. reliance on coal, on a whole lot of measures he’s taken, opening up federal lands to oil and gas exploration, keeping coal plants open.
The consequences for the world will be horrendous, in the sense that there will be higher carbon dioxide emissions coming from the United States, rather than a declining amount, as was the case previously. But on top of that, the United States is going to fall behind other countries like Germany and France and, of course, China, in the installation of renewable energy sources that will give us greater protection against the kind of energy shortages we’re seeing right now.
One of the ways I often talk about this is as a national security matter. Now, Donald Trump speaks a lot about national security, and I think he’s perverted the use of the term. If you look at what people in the military have been saying to me, they say that climate change poses an existential threat to the survival of the United States of America. It’s going to burn our country, flood our country, deprive our water supplies, and invade our country in ways that no foreign armies are capable of doing. So switching away from fossil fuels that accelerate climate change is a national security matter.
CURWOOD: You’ve been engaged in peace and security studies for decades. What gives you hope about future directions for the United States and the world based on knowing what we need to do?
KLARE: I look for signs of hope all the time, and sometimes it’s hard to do that. But the one positive outcome of the crisis we’re in now is that people are scratching their heads and saying, maybe getting an electric car next time around is a smart move. And I think that’s happening around the world. Governments around the world are scratching their heads and saying, maybe building another coal plant or natural gas plant isn’t such a smart move. We should instead invest in solar and wind power.
Now, that’s going to be a struggle, because the fossil fuel companies are going to push back against that, but I do think this is just going to lead people to think twice about their future investments in energy, and demand more reliable, less risky types of energy—and there’s no more reliable source of energy than the sun and wind power. People are really going to see more than ever the benefits of converting from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy.
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