The inevitability of war again in Iraq once again raises the question of how and where the U.S. can establish secure oil trade. The oil-for-food trade with Iraq erodes; our U.N. Security Council friends, France and Russia, continue to develop energy concerns in nations with whom we do not wish to trade. Even trade with Canada could be limited; House Resolution 434 heartily condemns Sheer Energy, a Canadian oil company, for its investment in the nationalized Iranian petroleum fields and presses President Bush to impose sanctions on Sheer for its role in investing in a state complicit with terrorism.

Imagine the benefits of increasing energy trade with nations that neither pose a terrorist threat to us nor can exercise the bloc control over global oil prices like OPEC. Moreover, imagine nations that are a burden to us in their crushing debt, always clamoring for U.S. assistance and relief. Imagine a steady increase in trade and development in their petroleum production sectors. The scenario seems to solve plenty of problems.

For a candidate famous for his dismissal of Africa in American foreign policy, the continent seems to be President Bush’s promised land. Rather than dealing with an oil producing bloc, bilateral relationships with oil-rich African nations are projected to increase, so that by 2015, 25% of oil imports will be from Africa. Nations on the Gulf of Guinea – that wide bay curving into western Africa – are particularly rich in petroleum deposits. Libya, Algeria and Nigeria are the continent’s only members of OPEC; projected increase in trade will be with nations like Cameroon, Gabon, Angola and Chad.

According to the Energy Information Administration, non-OPEC nations made 50 cents or more per barrel of crude oil than non-OPEC nations. Thus, non-OPEC fuel sources are cheaper than domestically produced oil, but more expensive than OPEC. However, depending on developments in Iraq, OPEC would have the power to decrease production and raise prices, power that non-OPEC trading partners could not exercise en masse. Moreover, we may find the security of our oil supply to be a matter forces of concern and therefore deploy military to the Gulf of Guinea to ensure the uninterrupted flow of energy to the United States.

Several other economic points bear mentioning. First, government income derived from such production (through taxation or nationalized oil fields) will be under scrutiny from international lenders anxious to assure that national debt maintenance does not fall into arrears. Even developing nations with relatively high income from trade and tourism often see their foreign exchange evaporate in the debt maintenance payments, driving them back to the same lenders for development projects like schools and hospitals, only cementing the cycle of debt. Second, even with a new surge of foreign exchange, wealth in an extremely hierarchical society does not translate to better education or health care for the poor.

Elitist systems and poor distribution of resources are hallmarks of several regimes in the Gulf of Guinea region. As much as we may despise despots of sub-Saharan Africa, they are among the most stable forms of government in the region. For example, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the president of Equatorial Guinea, has been in charge since he grabbed power in a 1979 coup. The CIA Factbook characterizes the nation as one that “has been ruled by ruthless leaders who have badly mismanaged the economy since independence from 190 years of Spanish rule in 1968.” Yet, we are looking to Equatorial Guinea as a major source of our imported oil.

In some developing nations, natural resources become the most powerful weapons. Nearly twenty years of civil war in Angola, corruption in the extreme in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and bloody contests to gain control of the oil-rich south of Sudan are testimony to the power those in control of resources can wield over the public. When we open up the African oil markets, we have to accept the likely outcome, that we will tacitly support an intensified struggle for resources and power, until someone makes enough money to be a threat or someone else makes so little money they revolt. Such is our struggle in the Middle East – that a disposed faction, left out of the petroleum largesse the officials in their nations enjoy, has decided to bring to bear their anger upon our nation.

Should Africa export more oil? Africa should absolutely develop and diversify its export markets. Foreign exchange may well be the catalyst for development in the region. However, developing nations too dependent on one resource are often left high and dry when the winds of global markets fail to blow in their favor. Jamaica’s bauxite, Kenya’s coffee and even Nigeria’s oil are all examples of lucrative resource markets that have tanked in recent years.

Our investment in African oil is in our best national interests. Diversifying our energy supply – if we still rely so heavily on oil – is the only prudent move. However, we must guard against valuing a dictator for his stability or creating an elite without demanding some kind of long-term development strategy to commensurate with our investment. Otherwise, we may well end up in an eerily familiar situation: Deposing a leader too abusive of the spoils of oil and a populace too poor to wait, creating explosive social conditions that we may someday face, even after stamping out the fires of Saddam’s defiance.

Rachel

Faber

Machacha

is a graduate student in international development studies. She is the opinion editor of the Daily.