Forecast for the Middle East in the Year 2020

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

  During the next ten years, the global oil industry will change markedly.  Iraq is estimated to outstrip Saudi Arabia in production to 9.5 million bpd within the next ten years, according to Patrick Coburn’s article of July 1, 2010, in the Independent (U.K.), entitled “Iraq Looks to Spectacular Oil Boom to Revive Its Political Fortunes”.  This will lower the price of oil and stimulate the global economy.  Commercial nuclear energy, based in part on processing vast quantities of nuclear wastes, will far outstrip all alternative sources and lower the price of oil still further.

  In response, Saudi Arabia will increasingly look to developing a manufacturing base derived from down-stream petrochemicals with production distributed all over Saudi Arabia, partly in order to ease urban tensions. 

  The eventual reduction of the Saudi competitive edge in both oil and petrochemicals will proceed slowly.  The risks of deep-sea production in the Caribbean and elsewhere may make America dependent on both Saudi and Iraqi oil, thereby competing with Europe.  Iran should decline as a player in the Middle East, in part because it will look to the rapidly expanding market in Asia.

  The perceived threat of Iran to the Gulf states and generally to the Middle East will decline because the current factionalism may devolve into political parties and defuse the totalitarian ideologies that have dominated during the past thirty years. 

  Karroubi’s party, if one crystalizes in Iran, would be more revolutionary than all the others, because he advocates the privatization of Iranian oil in equal individual shares of inalienable, voting stock to every resident of Iran. 

  The current division of oil income in Iraq is anticipated to provide one third of the total to the international companies and two thirds to Iraq.  Ayatollah Sistani supports privatization to make every Shia, Sunni, and Kurd equal owners of Iraqi oil, but so far he has stayed out of politics in order to maintain his authority for the post-occupation period.

  The power of the military secularization movement of the past 80 years in Turkey will further decline, particularly as Turkey turns eastward away from Europe in asserting its traditional identity.  It may even serve as a go-between in supporting a buffer zone between Russian and American influence in the form of an independent Federation of the Caucasus.

  Both the two-state and one-state options for The Holy Land may be dropped as unacceptable by the contending parties, which could lead to an economic federation, based largely on the oil resources off the shore of Gaza and Israel, and then to a political confederation.  This, however, would be possible only if all parties accept the Saudi plan at least as an initial basis for such a confederation. 

  Support in America for hardline Israeli governments will decline or even entirely disappear within the next five to ten years, partly because of a sharp increase in isolationism in both of the two main parties.  America’s footprint in the world will decline relatively to China but also absolutely if the existential fears of global chaos subside.  America may try to maintain its role by recovering its manufacturing base, but probably will not succeed unless it reforms its financial system far beyond anything now politically possible.

  Religious radicalism will decline as the above changes occur, thereby making more responsive governments possible, though the introduction of one-man-one-vote is unlikely anywhere, even pro forma.  The decline of religious radicalism can give the governments of the world greater opportunity to recognize the positive role of religion in promoting peace, prosperity, and freedom through faith-based, compassionate justice.