Da Iraq

Z Juniors 2008 – AMP!
Iraq Oil DA
ConCon and ChloBear Page 1
Index
Index.............................................................................................................................................1
Index................................................................................................................................................1
1NC Shell [1 of 3]........................................................................................................................6
1NC Shell [1 of 3]...........................................................................................................................6
1NC Shell [2 of 3]........................................................................................................................7
1NC Shell [2 of 3]...........................................................................................................................7
1NC Shell [3 of 3]........................................................................................................................8
1NC Shell [3 of 3]...........................................................................................................................8
Impact Calculus............................................................................................................................9
Impact Calculus.............................................................................................................................9
Impact Calculus – Global Warming Specific.............................................................................10
Impact Calculus – Global Warming Specific............................................................................10
Link Wall – Iraqi Stability..........................................................................................................11
Link Wall – Iraqi Stability..........................................................................................................11
Terrorism Scenario [1 of 2]........................................................................................................12
Terrorism Scenario [1 of 2].........................................................................................................12
Terrorism Scenario [1 of 2]........................................................................................................13
Terrorism Scenario [1 of 2].........................................................................................................13
Terror Scenario – Nuclear..........................................................................................................14
Terror Scenario – Nuclear...........................................................................................................14
Refugees Scenario [1 of 3].........................................................................................................15
Refugees Scenario [1 of 3]...........................................................................................................15
Global Econ Scenario.................................................................................................................18
Global Econ Scenario..................................................................................................................18
U.S.-Iran War Scenario [1 of 2]..................................................................................................19
Z Juniors 2008 – AMP! Iraq Oil DA
Iran Scenario – Dominance [Nuclear War] [1 of 2]...................................................................21

Iran Scenario – Dominance [Nuclear War] [1 of 2]..................................................................21
Iranian Dominance Scenario [2 of 2].........................................................................................22
Iranian Dominance Scenario [2 of 2].........................................................................................22
Iran Scenario – Instability [Nuclear Terrorism].........................................................................23
Iran Scenario – Instability [Nuclear Terrorism].......................................................................23
Saudi Arabia Scenarios [1 of 4]..................................................................................................24
Saudi Arabia ! – Global Econ [3 of 4]........................................................................................26
Saudi Arabia ! – Global Econ [3 of 4]........................................................................................26
Saudi Arabia ! – Global Stability [4 of 4]..................................................................................27
Saudi Arabia ! – Global Stability [4 of 4]...................................................................................27
AT: U.S. Saves Global Econ – Saudi Arabia Influence..............................................................28
AT: U.S. Saves Global Econ – Saudi Arabia Influence.............................................................28
Stability Increasing [1 of 3]........................................................................................................29
Stability Increasing [1 of 3].........................................................................................................29
Iraq Instability = Iran Instability................................................................................................32
Iraq Instability = Iran Instability...............................................................................................32
Iraq Civil War Escalates – Destabilizes Region.........................................................................33
Iraq Civil War Escalates – Destabilizes Region........................................................................33
Instability = Iran Dominance......................................................................................................34
Instability = Iran Dominance......................................................................................................34
Iraq Instability = Saudi Instability..............................................................................................35
Iraq Instability = Saudi Instability.............................................................................................35
Middle Eastern War Escalates....................................................................................................36
Middle Eastern War Escalates....................................................................................................36
Middle Eastern War = Extinction...............................................................................................37
Middle Eastern War = Extinction..............................................................................................37

Escalation Bad – Terror [1 of 2].................................................................................................38
Escalation Bad – Terror [1 of 2]..................................................................................................38
Escalation Bad – Terror [2 of 2].................................................................................................39
Escalation Bad – Terror [2 of 2]..................................................................................................39
Escalation Bad [Passion Inflammation] [1 of 2]........................................................................40
Escalation Bad – Refugee Flow = Iran Dominance...................................................................42
Escalation Bad – Refugee Flow = Iran Dominance..................................................................42
Escalation Bad – Refugees [1 of 2]............................................................................................43
Escalation Bad – Refugees [1 of 2]..............................................................................................43
Escalation Bad – Refugees [2 of 2]............................................................................................44
Escalation Bad – Refugees [2 of 2]..............................................................................................44
Escalation Bad – Laundry List [1 of 2]......................................................................................45
Escalation Bad – Laundry List 2................................................................................................47
Escalation Bad – Laundry List 2................................................................................................47
Global Warming = Middle East Tension [1 of 3].......................................................................48
Uniqueness Overwhelms the Link.............................................................................................51
Uniqueness Overwhelms the Link..............................................................................................51
Turn – Oil Consumption = Terror...............................................................................................52
Turn – Oil Consumption = Terror..............................................................................................52
Turn – High Oil Prices = Terror.................................................................................................53
Turn – High Oil Prices = Terror.................................................................................................53
Turn – Saudi Arabian Oil Revenues = Insurgency.....................................................................54

Turn – Saudi Arabian Oil Revenues = Insurgency...................................................................54
Turn – Iran Destabilizes Iraq [1 of 2].........................................................................................55
No Link – Oil Prices Will Stay High..........................................................................................57
No Link – Oil Prices Will Stay High..........................................................................................57
No Impact – Insurgency Fails.....................................................................................................58
No Impact – Insurgency Fails.....................................................................................................58
No Impact – Instability Doesn’t Spillover..................................................................................59
No Impact – Instability Doesn’t Spillover.................................................................................59
! Inevitable – Reduced Dependence...........................................................................................60
! Inevitable – Reduced Dependence............................................................................................60
No Impact – Iran Won’t Invade..................................................................................................61
No Impact – Iran Won’t Invade.................................................................................................61
AT: Surge Means No !................................................................................................................62
AT: Surge Means No !..................................................................................................................62
AT: Civil War Will Be Contained...............................................................................................63
AT: Civil War Will Be Contained...............................................................................................63
AT: Iraq Not Dependent on U.S. Market....................................................................................64
AT: Iraq Not Dependent on U.S. Market...................................................................................64
AT: Iraq Will Run Out................................................................................................................65
AT: Iraq Will Run Out................................................................................................................65
AT: Speculation Fuels Prices......................................................................................................66
AT: Speculation Fuels Prices.......................................................................................................66
AT: Iraq Pullout Destabilizes......................................................................................................67
AT: Iraq Pullout Destabilizes......................................................................................................67
AT: Geopolitical Events Fuel Prices...........................................................................................68
AT: Geopolitical Events Fuel Prices...........................................................................................68
AT: Alt Cause – Conflict Over Revenue....................................................................................69
AT: Alt Cause – Conflict Over Revenue.....................................................................................69
AT: Alt Cause – High Prices = Inflation.....................................................................................70
AT: Alt Cause – High Prices = Inflation.....................................................................................70

AT: Budget Protects Econ...........................................................................................................71
AT: Budget Protects Econ...........................................................................................................71
1NC Shell [1 of 3]
1. UNIQUENESS: STABILITY INCREASING NOW – MITIGATED TERROR,
STABILIZED ECON, OIL EXPORTS
The Times (London) 08 [February 12, “Resilience”, Lexis]
The flight of top al-Qaeda leaders, the killing or capture of a growing number of
terrorists and the admission in captured letters that mass defections and tribal opposition have
brought the terrorist structure to its knees are indications that Iraq's long dark night
may at last be about to lighten. The US commander in northern Iraq said yesterday that dozens of terrorist
leaders were now fleeing Iraq with looted cash, attempting to regroup beyond its borders. They had been driven
out by intensified pressure from US and Iraqi security forces and by the revulsion of
Sunni tribal leaders, who for the past year have been actively helping to root out groups perpetrating the violence and
suicide bombings. As a result, attacks across the country have dropped by 60 per cent, life is returning
to the streets and markets, Iraqis are cautiously venturing outside after dark, and schools,
hospitals and even railways are beginning to function normally. This revival has been borne out in
figures. The International Monetary Fund said last month that the economy is expected to find stability in
2008-09, despite continuing political and security problems. Economic growth would
probably exceed 7 per cent this year and remain as high in 2009, while oil production,
which accounts for 70 per cent of national income, is expected to rise by 200,000 barrels per day
this year. Oil exports are now bringing in $28 billion a year compared with $8 billion in
2003. The revival is being felt across the region. Iraq's Finance Minister yesterday urged businessmen in
neighbouring Jordan to invest in his country's "booming economy".
2. INVESTMENT IN ALTERNATIVE ENERGY LOWERS OIL PRICES

US Fed News 08 [5/6, “SKYROCKETING GAS PRICES HIGHLIGHT NEED TO USE AMERICAN RESOURCES,”
Lexis]
Despite promises of a "commonsense plan" to lower gas prices, the Democrats have failed to act on the number one issue affecting
Kentuckians' pocketbooks since taking over the Majority in Congress. Our
country must invest in alternative
energy sources in order to reduce our energy dependence and lower fuel costs. It is time Congress works in a
bipartisan manner to create a balanced energy solution that promotes conservation efforts and increases energy production on our own
The
soil. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has rejected commonsense solutions that increase production in America and use our own resources.
law of supply and demand is a staple of economics. It is commonsense that when we
increase domestic supply, gas prices will fall. I have voted for and supported a number of proposals that would do
just that. For example, the No More Excuses Energy Act (H.R. 3089) would encourage new refinery construction, allow for
environmentally responsible exploration of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and
provide tax incentives to encourage the construction of new nuclear power plants.
1NC Shell [2 of 3]
3. INTERNAL LINK: IRAQ’S OIL REVENUES KEY TO MAINTAIN STABILITY –
PRIMARY INDUSTRY
Wasey 06 [Adnaan, 12/27, Journalist and Editor for the Online NewsHour,
“Iraq's Fledgling Free-Market Economy,” http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/middle_east/iraq/july-dec06/macroeconomics_12-20-
06.html]
The core of the financial and economic struggle can be found in Iraq's critically important oil reserves. Oil
is Iraq's lifeline,
comprising two thirds of the country's gross domestic product and about 10 percent
of the world's proven reserves. The resource is expected to continue to be the primary
industry in Iraq's new economy but also its Achilles heel given that the country's
economic ups and downs are tied to volatile oil prices and to the ability of the country to produce and
export oil.
4. INTERNAL LINK: HIGH PRICES KEY TO STABILITY – PRESSURES COUNTRIES

INTO COOPERATION AND BRINGS THE WAR UNDER CONTROL
Friedman 5/28 [George, 2008, “The Geopolitics of $130 Oil,” Stratfor, Stratfor is the world’s leading online publisher of geopolitical
intelligence. Our global team of intelligence professionals provides our Members with insights into political, economic, and military
developments to reduce risks, to identify opportunities, and to stay aware of happenings around the globe. Stratfor provides three types of
intelligence products: Situational Awareness - News is a commodity that you can get anywhere on the Internet. Situational Awareness is knowing
what matters, and an intelligence professional’s responsibility - Stratfor’s responsibility - is to keep you apprised of what matters without wasting
your time with clutter. We provide near real-time developments from street revolutionary movements to military invasions. OJ’s latest arrest and
mudslinging in Washington and Brussels don’t make the cut. Analyses - Stratfor tells its Members what events in the world actually mean. We
also tell you when events are much ado about nothing. Oftentimes the seemingly momentous is geopolitically irrelevant and vice versa. We
discern what’s important objectively - without ideology, a partisan agenda, or a policy prescription. Forecasts - Knowing what happened
yesterday is helpful; knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow is critical. Stratfor’s intelligence team makes definitive calls about what’s next.
These aren’t opinions about what should happen; they’re analytically rigorous predictions of what will happen. Stratfor provides published
intelligence and customized intelligence service for private individuals, global corporations, and divisions of the US and foreign governments
around the world. Stratfor intelligence professionals routinely appear at conferences and as subject-matter experts in mainstream media. Stratfor
was the subject of a cover-story article in Barron’s entitled The Shadow CIA, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/geopolitics_130_oil]
As we have already said, the

biggest winners are the countries of the Arabian Peninsula.
Although somewhat strained, these countries never really suffered during the period
of low oil prices. They have now more than rebalanced their financial system and are
making the most of it. This is a time when they absolutely do not want anything
disrupting the flow of oil from their region. Closing the Strait of Hormuz, for example, would be disastrous to
them. We therefore see the Saudis, in particular, taking steps to stabilize the region. This includes supporting
Israeli-Syrian peace talks, using influence with Sunnis in Iraq to confront al Qaeda,
making certain that Shiites in Saudi Arabia profit from the boom. (Other Gulf countries are doing the same with their Shiites. This is
designed to remove one of Iran’s levers in the region: a rising of Shiites in the Arabian Peninsula.) In addition, the Saudis are using their
economic power to re-establish the relationship they had with the United States before 9/11. With the financial institutions in the United
States in disarray, the Arabian Peninsula can be very helpful. China is in an increasingly insular and defensive position. The tension is
palpable, particularly in Central Asia, which Russia has traditionally dominated and where China is becoming increasingly active in
making energy investments. The Russians are becoming more assertive, using their economic position to improve their geopolitical
position in the region. The Saudis are using their money to try to stabilize the region. With oil above $120 a barrel, the last thing they
need is a war disrupting their ability to sell. They do not want to see the Iranians mining the Strait of Hormuz or the Americans trying to
blockade Iran. The Iranians themselves are facing problems. Despite being the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, Iran also is the world’s
second-largest gasoline importer, taking in roughly 40 percent of its annual demand. Because of the type of oil they have, and because
they have neglected their oil industry over the last 30 years, their ability to participate in the bonanza is severely limited. It is obvious
that there is now internal political tension between the president and the religious leadership over the status of the economy. Put
differently, Iranians are asking how they got into this situation. Suddenly, the regional dynamics have changed. The
Saudi royal family is secure against any threats. They can buy peace on the Peninsula. The high price of oil makes
even Iraqis think that it might be time to pump more oil rather than fight. Certainly the
Iranians, Saudis and Kuwaitis are thinking of ways of getting into the action, and all have the means and geography
to benefit from an Iraqi oil renaissance. The war in Iraq did not begin over oil — a point
we have made many times — but it might well be brought under control because of oil.
1NC Shell [3 of 3]
5. A MIDDLE EASTERN WAR ESCALATING FROM IRAQ INSTABILITY IS THE
MOST LIKELY SCENARIO FOR WWIII
Ferguson 06 [Niall, September/October, “The Next War of the World,” Foreign Affairs, Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is the Laurence A.
Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor at Harvard Business School. He is a resident faculty member of
the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior
Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060901faessay85506/niall-ferguson/the-next-war-of-the-
world.html]
What makes the escalating civil war in Iraq so disturbing is that it has the potential to
spill over into neighboring countries. The Iranian government is already taking more
than a casual interest in the politics of post-Saddam Iraq. And yet Iran, with its Sunni and
Kurdish minorities, is no more homogeneous than Iraq. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria
cannot be expected to look on insouciantly if the Sunni minority in central Iraq begins to
lose out to what may seem to be an Iranian-backed tyranny of the majority. The recent
history of Lebanon offers a reminder that in the Middle East there is no such thing as a
contained civil war. Neighbors are always likely to take an unhealthy interest in any
country with fissiparous tendencies. The obvious conclusion is that a new "war of the
world" may already be brewing in a region that, incredible though it may seem, has yet
to sate its appetite for violence. And the ramifications of such a Middle Eastern
conflagration would be truly global. Economically, the world would have to contend
with oil at above $100 a barrel. Politically, those countries in western Europe with
substantial Muslim populations might also find themselves affected as sectarian
tensions radiated outward. Meanwhile, the ethnic war between Jews and Arabs in
Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank shows no sign of abating. Is it credible that
the United States will remain unscathed if the Middle East erupts? Although such an
outcome may seem to be a low-probability, nightmare scenario, it is already more
likely than the scenario of enduring peace in the region. If the history of the twentieth
century is any guide, only economic stabilization and a credible reassertion of U.S.
authority are likely to halt the drift toward chaos. Neither is a likely prospect. On the
contrary, the speed with which responsibility for security in Iraq is being handed over to
the predominantly Shiite and Kurdish security forces may accelerate the descent into
internecine strife. Significantly, the audio statement released by Osama bin Laden in June
excoriated not only the American-led "occupiers" of Iraq but also "certain sectors of the
Iraqi people -- those who refused [neutrality] and stood to fight on the side of the
crusaders." His allusions to "rejectionists," "traitors," and "agents of the Americans" were
clearly intended to justify al Qaeda's policy of targeting Iraq's Shiites. The war of the
worlds that H. G. Wells imagined never came to pass. But a war of the world did. The
sobering possibility we urgently need to confront is that another global conflict is
brewing today -- centered not on Poland or Manchuria, but more likely on Palestine
and Mesopotamia.
Impact Calculus
Magnitude: MAINTAINING IRAQI STABILITY IS KEY TO STOP THE PRIMARY
CAUSE OF GLOBAL CONFLICT – THIS IS ESSENTIAL TO PRESERVE LIVES
Khalilzad 06 [Zalmay, 7/11, “Iraq: A Status Report,” CSIS, Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad was confirmed on June 16, 2005 and sworn in on June
22, 2005 as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Dr. Khalilzad was U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and also served as Special
Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan. Before becoming Ambassador to Afghanistan, he served at the National Security Council as Special Assistant
to the President and Senior Director for Islamic Outreach and Southwest Asia Initiatives, and prior to that as Special Assistant to the President
and Senior Director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs. He also has been a Special Presidential Envoy and Ambassador at
Large for the Free Iraqis. Dr. Khalilzad headed the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Department of Defense and has been a Counselor to
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. Between 1993 and 1999, Dr. Khalilzad was Director of the Strategy, Doctrine and Force Structure program for
RAND's Project Air Force. While with RAND, he founded the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Between 1991 and 1992, Dr. Khalilzad served
as Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. Then-Secretary of Defense Cheney awarded Dr. Khalilzad the Department
of Defense medal for outstanding public service. Dr. Khalilzad also served as a senior political scientist at RAND and an associate professor at
the University of California at San Diego in 1989 and 1991. From 1985 to 1989 at the Department of State, Dr. Khalilzad served as Special
Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs working policy issues, advising on the Iran-Iraq war and the Soviet war in
Afghanistan. From 1979 to 1986, Dr. Khalilzad was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Dr. Khalilzad received his
bachelor's and master's degree from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Dr.
Khalilzad is the author of more than 200 books, articles, studies, and reports. His work has been translated in many languages including Arabic,
Chinese, German, Japanese, and Turkish, http://www.csis.org/images/stories/060711_khalilzad_transcript.pdf]
Whatever anyone may have thought about the decision to topple Saddam – whether one supported it or not – succeeding
in
Iraq is now essential to the future of the region and the world. Most of the world’s
security problems emanate from the region stretching from Morocco to Pakistan.
Shaping its future is the defining challenge of our time. What happens in Iraq will be
decisive in determining how this region evolves. Therefore, the struggle for the future
of Iraq is vital to the future of the world.
Probability: THE ESCALATION OF A MIDDLE EAST WAR FROM IRAQ IS THE

MOST LIKELY SCENARIO OF NUCLEAR WAR, EXTEND FERGUSON IN 6
AND THE IMPACT IS MORE PROBABLE

Center for Global Affairs 07 (Spring, The Center for Global Affairs is based in New York City with a distinguished faculty of
leading UN officials, economists, historians, NGO leaders, lawyers, and journalists who provide insights and in-depth understanding of
international relations. http://www.scps.nyu.edu/export/sites/scps/pdf/global-affairs/iraq-2010-scenarios.pdf)
What keeps it in play, however, are several powerful forces. Terrorist

groups are thriving in Iraq, have
regional ambitions, and view chaos as an ally. The Sunni-Shia divide deepens in Iraq
and is spreading regionally. Iran has a hegemonic past, similar hopes for its future,
and ties to terror groups with strengthening positions in the region. Arab regimes are
insecure, often unpopular, face radicalized populations, and are rife with inter-Arab
rivalries that complicate balancing against jidhadist or Iranian threats. In 2010,
American popularity among Arab publics is at an all-time low, its physical presence
is diminished, and its credibility among the region’s states—both allies and rivals—
is deeply wounded. Under these conditions, it would be imprudent to believe too
confidently in the logic of “self-interest” in the Middle East
Impact Calculus – Global Warming Specific

Probability and Timeframe against GLOBAL WARMING ADVANTAGES: WE KNOW
FOR A FACT THE EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR AND ITS SHORT TIMEFRAME
BUT SCIENTISTS CAN NEITHER PROJECT WORST CASE SCENARIOS OR AN
ACCEPTED TIMEFRAME FOR GLOBAL WARMING
Dibb 7/9 (2008, Paul Dibb, The Australian. Paul Dibb is emeritus professor of Strategic Studies at The Australian National Universty.
He is a former deputy secretary of defense and Director of the Defense Intelligence Organization.)
Now we have Ross Garnaut predicting that immense damage from climate change
will very likely be part of the Australian reality of the 21st century. Garnaut is an
internationally recognised academic economist with serious policy experience in his
discipline. But even he recognises there are large uncertainties surrounding the
science of climate change. He acknowledges there is debate and recognition of limits to knowledge about the ways in
which the risk may manifest itself. And yet he confidently proclaims, in great detail, that by 2100 Australia will face the end of
agriculture in the Murray-Darling basin, the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, 5.5 million Australians exposed to dengue fever virus,
as many as 9500 heatwave deaths a year, zero Australian snow-based tourism, and huge economic implications for us as well as
increased geopolitical instability in our region. Kevin Rudd describes these prophesies as
``predictions'', meaning they are an event that will happen. They are no such thing:
nobody can predict events 92 years into the future, no matter how detailed the
mathematical modelling. Garnaut's 500-page report seems to be based on an acceptance of the more calamitous end of the
spectrum. However, other ``science-based evidence'' exponents overseas have been predicting
much more extreme disasters than Garnaut. Britain's Foreign Secretary's special
representative for climate change has proclaimed there is no reason to expect
unmitigated climate change would be any less unpleasant than nuclear war. And the
International Institute for Strategic Studies in London has asserted that if climate
change is allowed to continue unchecked, the effects will be catastrophic -- on the level
of nuclear war -- if not in this century, then the next. A senior editor of the IISS even argues that
nuclear war, regional or global, will be a potential secondary consequence of climate
change. These are outrageous claims based on no scientific evidence. The fact is that
global nuclear war would have resulted in at least 200 million people killed in a
matter of hours on each side, and the rest would have died miserable deaths from
radiation sickness in the following days. Concerned scientists were telling us in the Cold War that the
world faced nuclear winter and complete obliteration. Now they are telling us the world faces annihilation
from global warming, but they are not certain whether it will occur in the next 30, 50,
100 or even 200 years.
Link Wall – Iraqi Stability

Extend Friedman 5/28, high oil prices are key to Iraqi stability because they force a change
in regional dynamics and coerce the Middle Eastern countries into cooperation and
stabilization so that supply and thus revenue will not be interrupted or decreased.
IRAQ’S OIL REVENUES KEY TO MAINTAIN STABILITY – MONEY
LA Daily News 7/12 [2008, “Iraqi Gives Out Cash,” http://www.dailynews.com/ci_9863860]
Despite such problems, Iraq's oil revenues, an estimated $70 billion this year, still provide the best chance
of leveraging the country's fragile period of calm into something more lasting, many
officials say. Top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus has repeatedly called money a crucial
weapon to lure neighborhoods from extremists and stabilize Iraq. The chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, urged the government to pass out money even faster this week on a trip to devastated Mosul in the
north.
HIGH PRICES KEY TO MAINTAIN STABILITY

McKillop 04 [Andrew, 4/19, “A counterintuitive notion: economic growth bolstered by high oil prices, strong oil demand,” Andrew
McKillop is a writer and consultant on oil and energy economics. Since 1975 he has worked in energy, economic and scientific organizations in
Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America. These include the Canada Science Council, the ILO, European Commission, Organization of
Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and South Pacific, and the World Bank. He is a
founding member of the Asian chapter of the International Association of Energy Economics. He has published widely in journals including the
Ecologist, the New Scientist and Le Monde Diplomatique, Oil & Gas Journal, Lexis]
Can this be done without higher oil prices? Higher revenues for many low-income oil
exporter countries -- notably for the special cases of Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and especially
Iraq -- may be the only short-term way to stop these countries from falling into civil
strife, insurrection, or ethnic war, let alone making vast investments to maintain or
expand their current export capacity. In the case of Iraq, increased oil revenues are a
question of life or death because higher revenues might prevent the country from
becoming ungovernable and might give it some potential for stability.
Terrorism Scenario [1 of 2]
IRAQI INSTABILITY WOULD PROPAGATE TERROR
Pollack 04 [Kenneth, 1/12, “After Saddam: Assessing the Reconstruction of Iraq,” Foreign Affairs, Kenneth Pollack is Director of Research
at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and the author of The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and
America, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040109faupdate83175/kenneth-m-pollack/after-saddam-assessing-the-reconstruction-of-iraq.html]
After the experience of the last thirty years we

now know quite a bit about failed states -- enough to
know that allowing Iraq to become one would be disastrous. The chaos bred by a
failed state can never be successfully contained. Iraqi refugees would flow out of the country and into
neighboring states. Chaos in Iraq would breed extremists and terrorists who would not limit
their targets only to those within Iraq's nominal borders. Groups within Iraq would
call on co-religionists, co-ethnicists, tribesmen, and fellow political travelers across
the borders for aid. Petty warlords would seek help from neighboring powers, and
the neighbors themselves would inevitably begin to intervene in Iraq's civil strife if
only in the vain hope of preventing it from spilling over into their territory. The
problem with failed states is not only the misery and suffering they inflict on the
people of the country itself, but how they destabilize their entire region. Lebanon fomented
instability in Israel and Syria. Lebanon also bred some of the worst terrorist groups around -- groups like Hizballah, which haunt the
region to this day. Afghanistan helped create the dangerously volatile situation in Pakistan, created internal unrest in eastern Iran, and
has spawne d problxèms for many of the Central Asian states. Afghanistan also became the breeding ground for al-Qa'eda. The chaos in
Congo has helped spread instability throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. The failure of Yugoslavia (and then of Bosnia) threatened
to destabilize the entire Balkans, prompting the intervention of NATO, which had the size and resources to stabilize the situation. The
same would likely hold true for Iraq and its impact on the
countries of the Persian Gulf. They would be
inundated by refugees and armed groups seeking sanctuary and assistance. They
would be sucked in by tribal rivalries, ethnic and religious ties, and fear that a failure
to act will cause the chaos to spread across their borders. They would likely become
battlegrounds for rival Iraqi militias and breeding grounds for Islamic fundamentalists and
terrorists. And these are countries that the United States cares about deeply. Saudi Arabia is frail enough as it is. Many analysts
fear that even on its own, the Saudi state might not last another ten years. Add to that the tremendously destabilizing influence of civil
war in Iraq next door, and no one should be sanguine about Saudi prospects. Kuwait is another major oil producer, and if chaos
consumed Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it would be hard for tiny Kuwait to remain inviolate. The loss of oil production as a result of chaos or
revolution in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait would cripple the international oil market with unimaginable consequences for the global
economy. Beyond them, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, and Syria are all also economically and political fragile and all would suffer from the
political, military and economic spillover of a failed state in Iraq.
Terrorism Scenario [1 of 2]
AND AN INCREASE IN TERRORISM LEADS TO EXTINCTION
Alexander 03 [Yonah, 8/28, “Terrorism Myths and Realities,” The Washington Times, Yonah Alexander is professor of international
studies and director of the Institute for Studies in International Terrorism at the State University of New York. He is a senior research staff
member at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is editor in chief of Terrorism: An International Journal
and Political Communication and Persuasion: An International Journal, Lexis]
Last week's brutal suicide bombings in Baghdad and Jerusalem have once again illustrated dramatically that the
international
community failed, thus far at least, to understand the magnitude and implications of
the terrorist threats to the very survival of civilization itself. Even the United States and Israel have
for decades tended to regard terrorism as a mere tactical nuisance or irritant rather than a critical strategic challenge to their national
security concerns. It is not surprising, therefore, that on September 11, 2001, Americans were stunned by the unprecedented tragedy of
19 al Qaeda terrorists striking a devastating blow at the center of the nation's commercial and military powers. Likewise, Israel and its
citizens, despite the collapse of the Oslo Agreements of 1993 and numerous acts of terrorism triggered by the second intifada that began
almost three years ago, are still "shocked" by each suicide attack at a time of intensive diplomatic efforts to revive the moribund peace
process through the now revoked cease-fire arrangements [hudna]. Why are the United States and Israel, as well as scores of other
countries affected by the universal nightmare of modern terrorism surprised by new terrorist "surprises"? There are many reasons,
including misunderstanding of the manifold specific factors that contribute to terrorism's expansion, such as lack of a universal
definition of terrorism, the religionization of politics, double standards of morality, weak punishment of terrorists, and the exploitation of
the media by terrorist propaganda and psychological warfare. Unlike their historical counterparts, contemporary
terrorists
have introduced a new scale of violence in terms of conventional and unconventional
threats and impact. The internationalization and brutalization of current and future
terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super Terrorism [e.g. biological, chemical,
radiological, nuclear and cyber] with its serious implications concerning national, regional and
global security concerns.
Terror Scenario – Nuclear

IN AN UNSTABLE MIDDLE EAST, NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION IS INEVITABLE
With continued weapons proliferation throughout the region, energized and hostile
jihadists armed with nuclear weapons might emerge. Though nuclear weapons technology is very
difficult to reproduce, dirty-bomb scenarios cannot be ruled out. Loose Iranian and Pakistani
nuclear weapons are also a possibility. Further al-Qaedaification in the region,
coupled with regional regimes’ inability to curtail terrorism, could lead to further
attacks abroad. Europe—already worried about the blowback from Iraq—might become a favorite
target for terrorists. There is no reason to think terror will stay concentrated in the
region, especially given the focus of jidahist anger against the United States and its
allies in the Middle East. The link between terrorism and undemocratic regimes is not so clear-cut. Democratic principles
will not satisfy those who are already prone to jidhadist philosophies. However, autocratic regimes do foster the emergence of terrorist
organizations. There is a need for gradual reform and accountability—rather than simple prescriptions for democracy—but in the end,
reform will not solve all problems related to terrorists.
Refugees Scenario [1 of 3]
[optional card] IRAQI INSTABILITY WOULD CREATE A MASSIVE DISPLACEMENT
OF REFUGEES

neighboring states. Chaos in Iraq would breed extremists and terrorists who would not limit
their targets only to those within Iraq's nominal borders. Groups within Iraq would
call on co-religionists, co-ethnicists, tribesmen, and fellow political travelers across
the borders for aid. Petty warlords would seek help from neighboring powers, and
the neighbors themselves would inevitably begin to intervene in Iraq's civil strife if
only in the vain hope of preventing it from spilling over into their territory. The
problem with failed states is not only the misery and suffering they inflict on the
people of the country itself, but how they destabilize their entire region. Lebanon fomented
instability in Israel and Syria. Lebanon also bred some of the worst terrorist groups around -- groups like Hizballah, which haunt the
region to this day. Afghanistan helped create the dangerously volatile situation in Pakistan, created internal unrest in eastern Iran, and
has spawne d problxèms for many of the Central Asian states. Afghanistan also became the breeding ground for al-Qa'eda. The chaos in
Congo has helped spread instability throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. The failure of Yugoslavia (and then of Bosnia) threatened
to destabilize the entire Balkans, prompting the intervention of NATO, which had the size and resources to stabilize the situation. The
consumed Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it would be hard for tiny Kuwait to remain inviolate. The loss of oil production as a result of chaos or
revolution in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait would cripple the international oil market with unimaginable consequences for the global
economy. Beyond them, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, and Syria are all also economically and political fragile and all would suffer from the
political, military and economic spillover of a failed state in Iraq.
IRAQI INSTABILITY WOULD CREATE MASSIVE REFUGEE FLOW AND
REFUGEES ARE BAD – THEY SPREAD VIOLENCE AND TERROR, EXACERBATE
INSTABILITY AND FOMENT REVOLUTION AND RADICALISM
Byman and Pollack 06 [Daniel L. and Kenneth M., 8/20, “What Next?,” The Washington Post, Dan Byman focuses on
counterterrorism and Middle East security. He also directs Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies, Ken Pollack is an
expert on national security, military affairs and the Persian Gulf. He was Director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council. He
also spent seven years in the CIA as a Persian Gulf military analyst. He is the author of A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in
the Middle East, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081800983.html]
Massive refugee flows are a hallmark of major civil wars. Afghanistan's produced the largest such
stream since World War II, with more than a third of the population fleeing. Conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s also generated millions
of refugees and internally displaced people: In Kosovo, more than two-thirds of Kosovar Albanians fled the country. In Bosnia, half of
the country's 4.4 million people were displaced, and 1 million of them fled the country altogether. Comparable figures for Iraq would
mean more than 13 million displaced Iraqis, and more than 6 million of them running to neighboring countries. Refugeesare
not merely a humanitarian burden. They often continue the wars from their new
homes, thus spreading the violence to other countries. At times, armed units move from
one side of the border to the other. The millions of Afghans who fled to Pakistan during
the anti-Soviet struggle in the 1980s illustrate such violent transformation. Stuck in the camps for
years while war consumed their homeland, many refugees joined radical Islamist
organizations. When the Soviets departed, refugees became the core of the Taliban.
This movement, nurtured by Pakistani intelligence and various Islamist political parties, eventually took power in Kabul and
opened the door for Osama bin Laden to establish a new base of operations for al-Qaeda. Refugee camps often become
a sanctuary and recruiting ground for militias, which use them to launch raids on
their homelands. Inevitably, their enemies attack the camps -- or even the host governments. In turn, those governments
begin to use the refugees as tools to influence events back in their homelands, arming,
training and directing them, and thereby exacerbating the conflict. Perhaps the most tragic
example of the problems created by large refugee flows occurred in the wake of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. After the Hutu-led
genocide resulted in the death of 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front "invaded" the
country from neighboring Uganda. The RPF was drawn from the 500,000 or so Tutsis who had already fled Rwanda from past pogroms.
As the RPF swept through Rwanda, almost 1 million Hutus fled to neighboring Congo, fearing that the evil they did unto others would
be done unto them. For two years after 1994, Hutu bands continued to conduct raids in Rwanda and began to work with Congolese
dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. The new RPF government of Rwanda responded by attacking not only the Hutu militia camps, but also its
much larger neighbor, bolstering a formerly obscure Congolese opposition leader named Laurent Kabila and installing him in power in
Kinshasa. A civil war in Congo ensued, killing perhaps 4 million people. The
flow of refugees from Iraq could
worsen instability in all of its neighboring countries. Kuwait, for example, has just
over 1 million citizens, one-third of whom are Shiite. The influx of several hundred
thousand Iraqi Shiites across the border could change the religious balance in the
country overnight. Both these Iraqi refugees and the Kuwaiti Shiites could turn
against the Sunni-dominated Kuwaiti government, seeing violence as a means to end
the centuries of discrimination they have faced at the hands of Kuwait's Sunnis.
Numbers of displaced people are already rising in Iraq, although they are nowhere
near what they could be if the country slid into a full civil war. About 100,000 Arabs are believed to
have fled northern Iraq under pressure from Kurdish militias. As many as 200,000 Sunni Arabs reportedly have been displaced by the
fighting between Sunni groups and the American-led coalition in western Iraq. In the past 18 months, 50,000 to 100,000 Shiites have
fled mixed-population cities in central Iraq for greater safety farther south. So far, in addition to the Palestinians and other foreigners,
only the Iraqi upper and middle classes are fleeing the country altogether, moving to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon or the Gulf States. As one
indicator of the size of this flight, since 2004 the Ministry of Education has issued nearly 40,000 letters permitting parents to take their
children's academic records abroad. If the violence continues to escalate, even those without
resources will soon flee to vast refugee camps in the nearest country. The war in Iraq has proved
to be a disaster for the struggle against Osama bin Laden. Fighters there are receiving training, building
networks and becoming further radicalized -- and the U.S. occupation is proving a
dream recruiting tool for young Muslims worldwide. As bad as this is, a wide-scale
civil war in Iraq could make the terrorism problem even worse. Such terrorist organizations as
Hezbollah, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) were all born of civil wars. They eventually shifted from assaulting their enemies in Lebanon,
Sri Lanka, Algeria, Northern Ireland and Israel, respectively, to mounting attacks elsewhere. Hezbollah has attacked Israeli, American
and European targets on four continents. The LTTE assassinated former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi because of his intervention
in Sri Lanka. The IRA began a campaign of attacks in Britain in the 1980s. The GIA did the same to France the mid-1990s, hijacking an
Air France flight then moving on to bombings in the country. In the 1970s, various Palestinian groups began launching terrorist attacks
against Israelis wherever they could find them -- including at the Munich Olympics and airports in Athens and Rome -- and then
attacked Western civilians whose governments supported Israel. In
Afghanistan, the anti-Soviet struggle in
the 1980s was a key incubator for bin Laden's movement. Many young mujaheddin
went to Afghanistan with only the foggiest notion of jihad. But during the fighting in Afghanistan,
individuals took on one another's grievances, so that Saudi jihadists learned to hate
the Egyptian government and Chechens learned to hate Israel. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda
convinced many of them that the United States was at the center of the Muslim world's
problems -- a view that almost no Sunni terrorist group had previously embraced. Other civil
wars in Muslim countries, including the Balkans, Chechnya and Kashmir, began for local reasons but became enmeshed in the broader
jihadist movement.
Should Iraq descend into a deeper civil war, the country could become a
sanctuary for both Shiite and Sunni terrorists, possibly even exceeding the problems of Lebanon in the 1980s
or Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Global Econ Scenario

IRAQI INSTABILITY WOULD DESTABILIZE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

neighboring states. Chaos in Iraq would breed extremists and terrorists who would not limit their targets only to those within Iraq's
nominal borders. Groups within Iraq would call on co-religionists, co-ethnicists, tribesmen, and fellow political travelers across the
borders for aid. Petty warlords would seek help from neighboring powers, and the neighbors themselves would inevitably begin to
The problem with
intervene in Iraq's civil strife if only in the vain hope of preventing it from spilling over into their territory.
failed states is not only the misery and suffering they inflict on the people of the
country itself, but how they destabilize their entire region. Lebanon fomented instability in Israel and
Syria. Lebanon also bred some of the worst terrorist groups around -- groups like Hizballah, which haunt the region to this day.
Afghanistan helped create the dangerously volatile situation in Pakistan, created internal unrest in eastern Iran, and has spawne d
problxèms for many of the Central Asian states. Afghanistan also became the breeding ground for al-Qa'eda. The chaos in Congo has
helped spread instability throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. The failure of Yugoslavia (and then of Bosnia) threatened to
destabilize the entire Balkans, prompting the intervention of NATO, which had the size and resources to stabilize the situation. The
consumed Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it would be hard for tiny Kuwait to remain inviolate. The
loss of oil production as a
result of chaos or revolution in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait would cripple the international
oil market with unimaginable consequences for the global economy. Beyond them, Jordan,
Turkey, Iran, and Syria are all also economically and political fragile and all would suffer from the political, military and economic
spillover of a failed state in Iraq.
U.S.-Iran War Scenario [1 of 2]

ESCALATION MEANS U.S. INTERVENTION – BRINGING IT INTO DIRECT
CONFLICT WITH A HEGEMONIC IRAN
The U.S. does not want to be perceived as the power behind any regime in the Middle
East. However, as Iran further destabilizes the situation in Iraq, the U.S. will come to
play a more direct role in defending Arab states, thereby escalating its confrontation
with Iran. In regards to Iranian nuclear ambition, the U.S. will try to delay the day
the Iranians actually become a nuclear power, but will accept it once it happens.
Prevention has been so discredited in Iraq that there may be no way to prevent Iran
from getting the bomb. One adjustment might be the extension of the U.S. nuclear
umbrella to Gulf monarchies, showing Iran that it cannot intimidate its neighbors,
and dissuading the region from attempting to develop its own weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). In a world with a nuclear-armed Iran, a cold war scenario may
develop. The U.S. backed off in every other nuclear situation (Israel, Pakistan, India), thus
lending credence to Iran’s belief that once it is nuclear-ready it will be able to
challenge the U.S. on its own terms. The U.S. will maintain control over Iraqi airspace and enforce a no-fly zone.
This will give Americans and other allies the ability to strike at targets within Iraq from the air, acting on intelligence tips about al
Qaeda-style training camps. This no-fly zone will also serve as a buffer between Iran and Israel. Unfortunately, the message is
still not sinking in that Iran is not Cuba. The Bay of Pigs is not the Straits of Hormuz. There, on an island called
Abu Musa, the Iranians have already deployed sophisticated anti-ship missiles and artillery shells, trained on a tiny gateway through
which half of our global oil flows. In other words, the
Iranians can turn this vital oil route into a fiery
inferno and precipitate global economic pandemonium, should the US embark on a
unilateral action. The Iranians can achieve this in many ways, even if its nuke
facilities are blasted to smithereens. Think of a few submerged oil tankers blocking oil
traffic to the rest of the world? There will be no room for environmental cries here;
they will drowned out by the shrills of the global economy, choked right at the straits.
Tehran may call this a "military blunder," which, incidentally is the title of a History Channel program on the controversial shooting
down of an Iran Air Airbus A300 on July 3, 1988, by the USS Vincennes, exactly at the same spot. Close to 300 people died. If
controversy still dogs that incident today, another mission creep in the Middle East would flame
justifications for any sort of reprisal. Iran's military retaliation would only need to
disrupt oil supply, not winning battles per se. It has other arsenals at its disposal to achieve this
target. In this game of brinkmanship, tit for tat verbal provocations between Washington (and Tel Aviv) and Tehran is enough to
rattle stock market nerves, and major industries are undoubtedly lobbying the White House right now to go easy with the rhetoric. Only
in this era of Peak Oil can verbal threats be used so effectively as a weapon.
Tehran will have unusual allies in
this case - the global economy, major oil companies, financial institutions, Russia,
China, etc. In fact, the list stretches to anyone who stands to lose a job or faces
starvation after it gets "Mission Accomplished." And there are tens of millions who
might in an oil gutted world, all within two or three months from the start of
hostilities. What happens after that could turn out to be a very bad nightmare. Any
sort of liberating, counter-terrorism or manufactured mission will be both Pyrrhic
and pyric, any way you look at it. China, which, sources a significant amount of oil
from Iran might be tempted to flex its own muscles, the same way Imperial Japan raced to the Dutch East
Indies for oil when Pearl Harbor was still smoking in ruins. Beijing doesn't have much of a strategic
petroleum reserve but it does have ample nuclear deterrent. In fact, Beijing will not need a deep
incursion southwards. Seizing Taiwan would do. Taipeh has long-term oil contracts with certain Southeast Asian nations, where they are
mainly traded at a pittance compared to current prices. Beijing will, of course, dispatch its navy to secure those supplies. The
U.S.-Iran War Scenario [2 of 2]

Russians, on the other hand, may resort to an en passant on its chessboard of energy
geopolitics and catch many by surprise. If the conditions are right, there is a possibility here of
Washington losing Japan and South Korea - due to is proximity to the Siberian fields
- to Moscow's orbit. The ides of March are ominous. Military options will be grossly counterproductive. Geopolitically,
surgical strikes by US bombers or warships are a ready-made gooey mess for the Persian Gulf, as they may have to operate out of Arab
soil or waters. The
Iranians need only retaliate against two or three major oil installations,
besides sinking enough tonnage to make the Straits of Hormuz perilous to navigation.
Letting loose a tiny armada of floating mines is another effective answer. Employing a
dirty nuke may make life rather inhospitable for inhabitants and oil firms in this
region. As for "covert" strikes, any unusual activity on Iraqi soil will be noted and
passed on to the Iranians before it is time for take-off. Battle-weary Iraqis know enough of warfare and
logistics. Turkey is a good lunching pad, if it relishes a Shabab-3 or two in return, and so would Israel. The Central Asian nations are
unlikely to be a party to this charade, especially after the Russians have reasserted a level of leverage there.
Iran Scenario – Dominance [Nuclear War] [1 of 2]

IRAQ STABILITY KEY TO MAINTAIN REGIONAL STABILITY – CHECKS IRANIAN
DOMINANCE
Cordesman 8/6 [Anthony, 2008, “The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq,” CSIS, Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A.
Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS. He is also a national security analyst for ABC News. His analysis has been featured prominently during the Gulf
War, Desert Fox, the conflict in Kosovo, the fighting in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. During his time at CSIS, he has been director of the Gulf
Net Assessment Project and the Gulf in Transition Study and principle investigator of the Homeland Defense Project. He also directed the Middle
East Net Assessment Project and was codirector of the Strategic Energy Initiative. He has led studies on the Iraq War, Afghan conflict, armed
nation building and counterinsurgency, national missile defense, asymmetric warfare and weapons of mass destruction, global energy supply, and
critical infrastructure protection. He is the author of a wide range of reports on U.S. security policy, energy policy, and Middle East policy, which
can be downloaded from the Burke Chair section of the CSIS Web site (www.csis.org/burke/). Cordesman formerly served as national security
assistant to Senator John McCain of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, and as civilian assistant to the deputy secretary of defense. In 1974, he directed the analysis of the lessons of the October War for the
secretary of defense, coordinating U.S. military, intelligence, and civilian analysis of the conflict. He has also served in other government
positions, including at the Department of State, Department of Energy, and NATO International Staff. He has had numerous foreign assignments,
including postings in Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran, and he has worked extensively in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Cordesman is the author of more
than 50 books, including a four-volume series on the lessons of modern war. His most recent works include Iraq’s Insurgency and the Road to
Civil Conflict (Praeger, 2007), Lessons of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War (CSIS, 2007), Iran’s Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities
(Praeger/CSIS, 2007), Iraqi Force Development (CSIS, 2007), Salvaging American Defense (Praeger/CSIS, 2007), and Chinese Military
Modernization (CSIS, 2007). Cordesman has been awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. He is a former adjunct
professor of national security studies at Georgetown University and has twice been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution, http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080607_iraq-strategicpatience.pdf]
Iraq has at least 11% of the world’s oil reserves, and its ability to not only continue to
export, but also to increase its exports, is a major factor affecting the global economy.
Iraq is a critical aspect of stability in a region with more than 60% of the world's
proven conventional oil reserves and some 40% if its gas reserves. It plays a major role in the
struggle for the future of the Islamic and Arab world, and against Islamist extremism
and terrorism. Iraq is also a major player in the stability of the Gulf region at the
political and military level. It is a major potential counterbalance to Iranian
influence and opportunism, if Iraq succeeds in reemerging as a major regional state.
It would be a sharply destabilizing factor in the region if its Shi’ite population or the
entire country came under Iranian influence or dominance, and the resulting Iranian
pressure on Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon would pose a serious additional threat to the
Arab-Israeli peace process. One way or another, the Arab Sunni states would also back Arab Sunnis in Iraq, and Iran
would back the Shi’ites. No one can predict how violent this would make things in Iraq, or how much it would increase tensions in the
Gulf and around it.
Iranian Dominance Scenario [2 of 2]

IRANIAN DOMINANCE LEADS TO THE ELIMINATION OF ISRAEL, OIL-BASED
COERCION, REGIONAL PROLIFERATION AND NUCLEAR WAR
Ben-Meir 07 [Alon, 2/6, “Ending Iranian Defiance,” UPI, Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is an expert on Middle East politics and affairs, specializing
in peace negotiations between Israel and the Arab states. For the past twenty five years, Dr. Ben-Meir has been directly involved in various
negotiations and has operated as a liaison between top Arab and Israeli officials. Dr. Ben-Meir serves as senior fellow at New York University's
School of Global Affairs where he has been teaching courses on the Middle East and negotiations for 17 years. He is also host of "Global
Leaders: Conversations with Alon Ben-Meir," a series of debates and conversations with top policy-makers around the world. Dr. Ben-Meir
writes frequently and has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines and websites including the Middle East Times, the Christian Science
Monitor, Le Monde, American Chronicle, the Week, the Political Quarterly, Israel Policy Forum, Gulf Times, the Peninsula, and the Huffington
Post. He also makes regular television and radio appearances, and has been featured on networks such as CNN, FOX, PBS, ABC, al Jazeera
(English and Arabic), and NPR. He has authored six books related to Middle East policy and is currently working on a book about the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. Dr. Ben-Meir holds a masters degree in philosophy and a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University. He is
fluent is English, Arabic, and Hebrew, http://www.middleeastinfo.org/commentary.php?id=2191]
Although ideally direct negotiations between the United States and Iran should be the
first resort to resolve the nuclear issue, as long as Tehran does not feel seriously
threatened, it seems unlikely that the clergy will at this stage end the nuclear
program. In possession of nuclear weapons Iran will intimidate the larger Sunni Arab states in the
region, bully smaller states into submission, threaten Israel's very existence, use oil as
a political weapon to blackmail the West and instigate regional proliferation of
nuclear weapons' programs. In short, if unchecked, Iran could plunge the Middle
East into a deliberate or inadvertent nuclear conflagration. If we take the administration at its word
that it would not tolerate a nuclear Iran and considering these regional implications, Washington is left with no choice but to warn Iran of
the severe consequences of not halting its nuclear program.
Iran Scenario – Instability [Nuclear Terrorism]

IRAQ INSTABILITY CREATES AN UNBALANCED IRANIAN STATE

The problem with
inundated by refugees and armed groups seeking sanctuary and assistance. They would be sucked
in by tribal rivalries, ethnic and religious ties, and fear that a failure to act will cause the
chaos to spread across their borders. They would likely become battlegrounds for
rival Iraqi militias and breeding grounds for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists. And these are
countries that the United States cares about deeply. Saudi Arabia is frail enough as it is. Many analysts fear that even on its own, the
Saudi state might not last another ten years. Add to that the tremendously destabilizing influence of civil war in Iraq next door, and no
one should be sanguine about Saudi prospects. Kuwait is another major oil producer, and if chaos consumed Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it
would be hard for tiny Kuwait to remain inviolate. The loss of oil production as a result of chaos or revolution in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and
Kuwait would cripple the international oil market with unimaginable consequences for the global economy. Beyond them, Jordan,
Turkey,
Iran, and Syria are all also economically and political fragile and all would suffer from the political,
military and economic spillover of a failed state in Iraq.
IRAN INSTABILITY BREEDS NUCLEAR TERRORISM AND THE COMING
APOCALYPSE
Eisenstadt 05 [Michael, October, “Deter and Contain: Dealing with a Nuclear Iran,” Strategic Studies Institute, Michael Eisenstadt is a
senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Military and Security Studies Program. He is a specialist in Arab-Israeli and Persian Gulf
security affairs and has published articles and monographs on the armed forces of the region; on irregular and conventional warfare and nuclear
weapons proliferation in the Middle East; and on U.S. policy toward the region. Prior to joining the Institute in 1989, Mr. Eisenstadt worked as a
civilian military analyst with the U.S. Army. In 1992, he took a leave of absence from the Institute to work on the U.S. Air Force Gulf War Air
Power Survey, to which he contributed a chapter on Iraqi strategy and planning. Mr. Eisenstadt is a reserve officer in the U.S. Army, serving on
active duty in 2001-2002 at U.S. Central Command headquarters and on the Joint Staff during Operation Enduring Freedom and the planning for
Operation Iraqi Freedom. In 1991, he served in Turkey and Iraq in support of Operation Provide Comfort. In 2002-2003 he served as an advisor
to the State Department's Future of Iraq defense policy working group, and in 2006 he was an advisor to the congressionally mandated Iraq Study
Group (the Baker-Hamilton Commission). Mr. Eisenstadt earned a master's degree in Arab studies at Georgetown University and has traveled
widely in the Middle East, www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub629.pdf]
Instability in Iran. Finally, there

are the implications of political instability and domestic unrest
in a nuclear Iran. Should anti-regime violence escalate to the point that it were to
threaten the existence of the Islamic Republic (unlikely in the near-term, but possible in the
future, should Iran’s conservative leadership prove unable to better the population’s
living standards, and continue to ignore calls for political change), diehard supporters
of the old order might lash out at the perceived external enemies of the regime with
all means at their disposal, as the regime teeters on the brink. In such a scenario, the
apocalyptic possibility of nuclear terrorism by the Islamic Republic in its death throes
must be treated seriously.
Saudi Arabia Scenarios [1 of 4]

IRAQ INSTABILITY CREATES AN UNBALANCED SAUDI STATE

The problem with
same would likely hold true for Iraq and its impact on thecountries of the Persian Gulf. They would be
inundated by refugees and armed groups seeking sanctuary and assistance. They would be sucked
in by tribal rivalries, ethnic and religious ties, and fear that a failure to act will cause the
chaos to spread across their borders. They would likely become battlegrounds for
rival Iraqi militias and breeding grounds for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists. And these are
countries that the United States cares about deeply. Saudi Arabia is frail enough as it is. Many analysts fear that even on its
own, the Saudi state might not last another ten years. Add to that the tremendously
destabilizing influence of civil war in Iraq next door, and no one should be sanguine
about Saudi prospects. Kuwait is another major oil producer, and if chaos consumed Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it would be
hard for tiny Kuwait to remain inviolate. The loss of oil production as a result of chaos or revolution in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait
would cripple the international oil market with unimaginable consequences for the global economy. Beyond them, Jordan, Turkey, Iran,
and Syria are all also economically and political fragile and all
would suffer from the political, military and
economic spillover of a failed state in Iraq.
Saudi Arabia Scenarios [2 of 4]

GLOBAL ECONOMY: AND SAUDI INSTABILITY RISKS COLLAPSE OF THE
GLOBAL ECONOMY
Copley 02 [Gregory, 5/22, “The Kingdom at a Crossroads: Saudi Arabia's Seemingly Intractable Dilemma,” Defense & Foreign Affairs
Daily, Gregory Copley is also Chairman of the International Strategic Studies Association’s Balkan & Eastern Mediterranean Policy Council,
Editor of the Defense & Foreign Affairs group of publications, and head of the Global Information System intelligence service. He has written
extensively on Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean strategic issues, and is the author of numerous books and studies on strategic issues, Lexis]
Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia's problems have become the problems of virtually the entire
Muslim ummah (nation), and are perhaps the real core of the schism between Western
and Muslim societies. The danger exists that the Saudi leadership could still collapse in the near
future and the integrity of the Saudi State could come into question. The problems in Saudi Arabia -- decades in the making -- are at
the geopolitical heart of Islam, thus affecting most of the Muslim world and the relationship between Islamic societies and the West.
The phenomena of Osama bin Laden's worldwide terrorism network, the radical Islamist anti-state
activities under Sudan's Dr Hassan al-Turabi, the related and parallel evolution of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the
direction of the Chechen rebellion, and so on, all owe much to the evolving problems in Saudi
Arabia as well as to the radical clerics in Iran. Not even Saudi Arabia's leadership has acknowledged the extent of the crisis,
although privately many leading Saudi princes have admitted the prospect of an imminent collapse of the House of Sa'ud. Saudi
Arabia's problems have an immediate bearing on whether major war occurs between
Israel and its neighbors, and whether Saudi Arabia survives with its present form of government. They are
therefore critical to the global economy and global strategic stability.
GLOBAL STABILITY: AND SAUDI INSTABILITY RISKS COLLAPSE OF GLOBAL
STABILITY
Copley 02 [Gregory, 5/22, “The Kingdom at a Crossroads: Saudi Arabia's Seemingly Intractable Dilemma,” Defense & Foreign Affairs
Daily, Gregory Copley is also Chairman of the International Strategic Studies Association’s Balkan & Eastern Mediterranean Policy Council,
Editor of the Defense & Foreign Affairs group of publications, and head of the Global Information System intelligence service. He has written
extensively on Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean strategic issues, and is the author of numerous books and studies on strategic issues, Lexis]
Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia's problems have become the problems of virtually the entire
Muslim ummah (nation), and are perhaps the real core of the schism between Western
and Muslim societies. The danger exists that the Saudi leadership could still collapse in the near
future and the integrity of the Saudi State could come into question. The problems in Saudi Arabia -- decades in the making -- are at
the geopolitical heart of Islam, thus affecting most of the Muslim world and the relationship between Islamic societies and the West.
The phenomena of Osama bin Laden's worldwide terrorism network, the radical Islamist anti-state
activities under Sudan's Dr Hassan al-Turabi, the related and parallel evolution of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the
direction of the Chechen rebellion, and so on, all owe much to the evolving problems in Saudi
Arabia as well as to the radical clerics in Iran. Not even Saudi Arabia's leadership has acknowledged the extent of the crisis,
although privately many leading Saudi princes have admitted the prospect of an imminent collapse of the House of Sa'ud. Saudi
Arabia's problems have an immediate bearing on whether major war occurs between
Israel and its neighbors, and whether Saudi Arabia survives with its present form of government. They are
therefore critical to the global economy and global strategic stability.
Saudi Arabia ! – Global Econ [3 of 4]

COLLAPSE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY CAUSES NUCLEAR WAR
Mead 92 [Walter Russell, WALTER RUSSELL MEAD is Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on
Foreign Relations and the author, most recently, of God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, World Policy Institute]
Hundreds of millions – billions – of people have pinned their hopes on the international market
economy. They and their leaders have embraced the international market economy – and drawn closer to the west – because
they believe the system can work for them. But what if it can’t? What if the global economy
stagnates – or even shrinks? In that case, we will face a new period of international
conflict: North against South, rich against poor. Russia, China, India – these
countries with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much
greater danger to the world than Germany and Japan did in the ‘30s.
Saudi Arabia ! – Global Stability [4 of 4]

THIS ESCALATES INTO GLOBAL NUCLEAR WAR – ISRAELI NUKES AND
MIDDLE EASTERN WAR
Steinbach 02 [John, 3/3, “Israeli Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Threat to Peace,” Center for Research on Globalization, The Centre for
Research on Globalisation (CRG) is an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists. The CRG is based in
Montreal. It is a registered non profit organization in the province of Quebec, Canada. In addition to the Global Research website, the Centre is
involved in book publishing and educational outreach activities including the organization of public conferences and lectures. The Centre also
acts as a think tank on crucial international and geopolitical issues. The Global Research webpage at www.globalresearch.ca publishes news
articles, commentary, background research and analysis on a broad range of issues, focussing on social, economic, strategic and environmental
processes. The Global Research website was established on the 9th of September 2001, two days before the tragic events of September 11.
Barely a few days later, Global Research had become a major news source on the New World Order and Washington's "war on terrorism". Since
September 2001, we have established an extensive archive of news articles, in-depth reports and analysis on issues which are barely covered by
the mainstream media. During the invasion of Iraq (March-April 2003), Global Research published, on a daily basis, independent reports from
the Middle East, which provided an alternative to the news emanating from the "embedded" journalists reporting from the war theater. Several
Global Research authors have received awards for their writings. In early 2006, Global Research established a separate French language website,
www.mondialisation.ca, which reaches Francophone readers in Western Europe, North America, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. In
2007-2008, we launched Spanish, Portuguese and German language pages, which contain translations of Global Research articles. Arabic and
Italian pages are to be launched in 2008. Global Research articles are used as source material by college and university students. Moreover,
numerous universities, libraries and research institutions have established a link to Global Research on their respective web sites. Since 2001,
Global Research has established an international network of writers and analysts. Global Research counts among its regular contributors a
number of prominent writers, researchers and academics as well as several promising young authors. Our data bank now includes a classification
by author, and by country. Also of interest is an archive of audio-video material. Global Research is classified by Alexa (the web-ranking
organization), as The Number One Globalization Site. Global Research has more than 30,000 unique visitors per day and more than 7000
Newsletter subscribers. Global Research has received for four years in succession, the Goodwriters Democratic Media Award, classified among
the best 80 alternative news sites, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/STE203A.html]
Meanwhile, the existenceof an arsenal of mass destruction in such an unstable region in

turn has serious implications for future arms control and disarmament negotiations,
and even the threat of nuclear war. Seymour Hersh warns, "Should war break out in the Middle
East again,... or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did,
a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong
probability."(41) and Ezar Weissman, Israel's current President said "The nuclear issue is gaining
momentum(and the) next war will not be conventional."(42) Russia and before it the Soviet Union has
long been a major(if not the major) target of Israeli nukes. It is widely reported that the principal purpose of Jonathan Pollard's spying
for Israel was to furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other super sensitive data relating to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy. (43)
(Since launching its own satellite in 1988, Israel no longer needs U.S. spy secrets.) Israeli nukes aimed at the Russian heartland seriously
complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and, at the very least,
the unilateral possession of nuclear
weapons by Israel is enormously destabilizing, and dramatically lowers the threshold
for their actual use, if not for all out nuclear war. In the words of Mark Gaffney, "... if the familar
pattern(Israel refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not reversed soon- for whatever reason-
the deepening Middle East conflict could trigger a world conflagration."
AT: U.S. Saves Global Econ – Saudi Arabia Influence

SAUDI ECONOMY OUTWEIGHS US ECONOMY- OIL DEPENDENCE
Handy 08 [Howard, April, Howard Handy. Chief Economist & General Manager of Samba The Saudi Economy: Recent Performance and
Prospects for 2008-09 April 2008 http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/articles/2008/ioi/080410-samba-economy.html]
Saudi Arabia commands a pivotal position in the global economy. As

The Global Context
both the world’s largest oil producer, and the only one with significant spare capacity, the Kingdom has
a substantial influence on the supply (and hence price) of this most crucial resource. In
addition, Saudi Arabia is an important exporter of capital. Although an increasing amount of the
country's oil earnings are invested at home, such is the scale of these earnings that the country has continued to accumulate foreign
assets. In 2007, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA, the central bank) increased its foreign assets by $80 billion. Most of
this is likely to have been channeled into US dollar-denominated assets, representing
significant support for the greenback at a time when the US external current account
remains in large deficit and there are growing uncertainties about US economic
prospects. (We will explore Saudi Arabia's role in global financial intermediation in more detail in a later report.) Finally, the
Kingdom's economy has been growing rapidly in recent years, doubling in nominal terms since 2002. With nominal GDP projected at
around $465 billion this year, Saudi Arabia's economy is now on a par with that of Switzerland. It accounts for a little more that half of
the total output of the GCC and is twice the size of the second largest GCC economy, the UAE. It is a major trading nation, and the
second largest global source of outward remittances after the US. Oil prices, food prices, and US interest rates all have an important
bearing on Saudi Arabia’s economy..
Stability Increasing [1 of 3]
IRAQ STABILITY INCREASING – OIL WINDFALL AND GOV’T CONFIDENCE
Khalil 7/19 [Ashraf, 2008, “Less violence, more oil fuel Iraq's rebound,” Chron News, Ashraf Khalil is a Cairo-based writer whose work
appears in the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle. He is a former editor in chief of Cairo Times newsmagazine,
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5896328.html]
Months of diminished violence have allowed Iraq's battered oil industry to return to
its prewar production level of 2.5 million barrels a day. (Before Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, it produced almost 4.5
million barrels a day.) The resurgent production combined with record oil prices adds up to a
massive windfall, part of which is being passed on to civil servants. "This will create
more confidence in the government," Abdullah said. "It's an indication of stability."
STABILITY INCREASING – U.S. MILITARY SURGE, ECONOMIC GROWTH,

MITIGATED TERROR
The Economist 6/12 [2008, “The Change in Iraq: Is It Turning the Corner?”
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=348966&story_id=11540858, CL]
THOUGH still lacerated by the tragedy of the past five years, Iraqis at last getting better all round. The
violence, albeit still ferocious in parts of the country, has subsided dramatically. The American
military “surge” that began a year ago has worked better than even the optimists had
hoped, helped by ceasefires with Shia militias, by accords with Sunni tribal leaders and by the fact that sectarian cleansing in many
areas is sadly complete. Politics is also beginning to stutter towards something approaching
normality, with signs of an accommodation between the three main communities—Shia
Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds—and the prospect of a series of vital laws, on such matters as sharing the revenue from oil, being passed,
though they are still subject to endless last-minute hiccups. Some key laws, for instance on pensions and the budget, have recently been
enacted. A set of provincial elections towards the end of this year has a chance of empowering the aggrieved Sunni Arabs. Various Sunni
The economy has begun to
ministers who walked out of the government a year ago in a huff may soon be back in.
grow fast too, though its ripples have yet to be felt across the country. The soaring
price of oil, along with a mild improvement in production to just above its pre-war
peak, mean that the government has more cash to spend than it is has had since the
first Gulf war of 1991. In sum, the worst of the horrors unleashed in the sectarian violence after the bombing of a Shia
shrine in February 2006 may be over. The death rate is sharply down. Fewer Americans were killed in hostilities in
May, when 19 died, than in any month since the invasion of March 2003 (see chart). That is half the average for the first four months of
this year and one-quarter of last year's rate. The Iraqi civilian toll is harder to measure. Iraq Body Count, a group that collates a tally of
casualties from media reports, noted 752 civilian and police deaths in May, a grim figure but less than a third of the average last summer.
American officials in Baghdad are careful to avoid the misplaced triumphalism expressed immediately after the invasion five years ago.
Progress, as General David Petraeus, the American commander on the ground, is wont to say, is “fragile and reversible”. But in
Baghdad's Green Zone, the sealed-off sanctuary on the west bank of the River Tigris where the American-led coalition's headquarters
and most of Iraqi ministries are ensconced, optimism is back in the air, reflecting a broader change of mood in the country. An opinion
poll in February that asked Iraqis “How would you say things are going overall these days?” found that 43% said they were going well,
up from only 22% in September. Among Shias, the figure rose from 39% to 61%; among Sunnis, it went from a paltry 2% to 16%, but a
notable jump all the same. If the poll were conducted today, the answers would be more positive still. One
clear reason for
hope is that al-Qaeda's Iraqi branch has taken a big knock. The CIA's director, Michael Hayden,
recently said it had suffered a “near-strategic defeat”. Serviced mainly by Sunni radicals from the wider Arab world, al-Qaeda in
Mesopotamia (as it calls itself) was responsible for most of the huge car bombs that terrorised Shia communities and provoked their
backlash of sectarian cleansing, almost tipping Iraq into full-scale civil war two years ago. Such bombings and sectarian
attacks are now scarcer.
STABILITY INCREASING NOW – SURGE, GOVERNMENT, ECON
The Economist 6/12 [2008, “Iraq Starts to Fix Itself,”
http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=11535688, CL]
AFTER all the blood and blunders, people are right to be sceptical when good news is announced
from Iraq. Yet it is now plain that over the past several months, while Americans have been distracted by their
presidential primaries, many things in Iraq have at long last started to go right. This improvement
goes beyond the fall in killing that followed General David Petraeus's “surge”. Iraq's
government has gained in stature and confidence. Thanks to soaring oil prices it is
flush with money. It is standing up to Iraq's assorted militias and asserting its independence from both America and Iran.
The overlapping wars—Sunni against American, Sunni against Shia and Shia against Shia—that harrowed Iraq after the
invasion of 2003 have abated. The country no longer looks in imminent danger of flying
apart or falling into everlasting anarchy. In September 2007 this newspaper supported the surge not because we
had faith in Iraq but only in the desperate hope that the surge might stop what was already a bloodbath from becoming even worse. The
situation now is different: Iraq is still a mess, but something
approaching a normal future for its people is
beginning to look achievable. As General Petraeus himself admits, and our briefing this week argues, the change
is fragile, and reversible. But it is real. Only a few months ago, Iraq was in the grip not only of a fierce anti-
American insurgency but also of a dense tangle of sectarian wars, which America seemed powerless to stop. Those who thought it was
just making matters worse by staying on could point to the bloody facts on the ground as evidence. But now it is time to look again.
Each of those overlapping conflicts has lately begun to peter out.
STABILITY INCREASING NOW – MITIGATED TERROR, STABILIZED ECON, OIL

EXPORTS
The Times (London) 08 [February 12, “Resilience”, Lexis, CL]
The flight of top al-Qaeda leaders, the killing or capture of a growing number of
terrorists and the admission in captured letters that mass defections and tribal opposition have
brought the terrorist structure to its knees are indications that Iraq's long dark night
may at last be about to lighten. The US commander in northern Iraq said yesterday that dozens of terrorist
leaders were now fleeing Iraq with looted cash, attempting to regroup beyond its borders. They had been driven
out by intensified pressure from US and Iraqi security forces and by the revulsion of
Sunni tribal leaders, who for the past year have been actively helping to root out groups perpetrating the violence and
suicide bombings. As a result, attacks across the country have dropped by 60 per cent, life is returning
to the streets and markets, Iraqis are cautiously venturing outside after dark, and schools,
hospitals and even railways are beginning to function normally. This revival has been borne out in
figures. The International Monetary Fund said last month that the economy is expected to find stability in
2008-09, despite continuing political and security problems. Economic growth would
probably exceed 7 per cent this year and remain as high in 2009, while oil production,
which accounts for 70 per cent of national income, is expected to rise by 200,000 barrels per day
this year. Oil exports are now bringing in $28 billion a year compared with $8 billion in
2003. The revival is being felt across the region. Iraq's Finance Minister yesterday urged businessmen in
neighbouring Jordan to invest in his country's "booming economy".
STABILITY INCREASING NOW – REASONABLE INFLATION RATES, OIL
REVENUES, IMPROVED RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION, PORT CAPACITY
O’Hanlon 7/14 [Michael, 2008, “Iraq Stability Increasing,” Brookings, Michael O'Hanlon is a senior scholar at the Brookings Institution,
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0106_iraq_ohanlon.aspx]
To be fair, some
things are known. Inflation is within reasonable bounds. Oil revenues are
up quite a bit due to the price of petroleum, even if production has increased only
very gradually. Due largely to the improved security environment, electricity production and
distribution finally took a substantial step forward in 2007, for the first time since the 2003
invasion. Without even counting the informal electricity sector, which has itself grown, official numbers have increased 10 percent to 20
percent. Cell phone ownership and usage have gone through the roof; national port capacity has increased
substantially; the Internet is making real inroads.
Iraq Instability = Iran Instability

INSTABILITY IN IRAQ WOULD OVERFLOW AND DESTABILIZE IRAN – ETHNIC
MINORITIES
Beehner 06 (Lionel, 8/31, “Iraq’s Meddlesome Neighbors” Council on Foreign Relations. Lionel Beehner was a Senior Staff Writer for the
Council on Foreign Relations.)
Tehran, which fought Saddam Hussein's Iraq throughout the 1980s, has a vested interest in seeing Iraq
develop into a stable and united neighbor, provided it does not pose a future military
threat. To be sure, experts say it is not in Tehran's interest to see Washington's regime-change experiment succeed in Iraq. "The
Iranians want us to withdraw in embarrassment and shame," says F. Gregory Gause, a Middle East expert at the University of Vermont.
"It's a threat to them if we can consolidate our position [in the Middle East]." That may partially explain Iran's logistical, financial, and
political support for some of Iraq's southern-based Shiite militias, as well as the presence of Iranian paramilitary units in places like
Baghdad and Basra. The longer a manageable conflict remains in Iraq, the thinking goes, the longer the U.S. military will be bogged
down there and unable to threaten Iran militarily. Yet a
full-blown civil war in Iraq is not in Iran's interest
either. Tehran fears Iraq may splinter into three states, which might embolden its own
domestic Kurdish population to push for greater autonomy. The result, according to
the United States Institute of Peace, is Tehran is "hedging its bets" by developing
relations with all of Iraq's factions, including secular and religious militias, the
largely Sunni insurgents, and other ethnic communities. "Iranians like to keep all
their bases covered," says Michael Knights, a London-based associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. A
recent report (PDF) by British think tank Chatham House claims Iran now wields more influence in Iraq than the United States.
Iraq Civil War Escalates – Destabilizes Region

CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ WOULD DESTABILIZE THE ENTIRE REGION AND
CATAPULT IT INTO CHAOS
Iraq has descended into outright civil war. Instability spreads throughout the Middle
East. The regional players, competing and insecure, fail to cooperate on matters of defense and
counter-terrorism and prove unable to contain the fighting within Iraq. While U.S.
pressure and the limited military capacity of local actors have succeeded in
preventing all-out regional conflict between Sunni and Shia-led states, the proxy war
fought on Iraqi territory (Scenario Two) spreads to adjoining states through refugee flows,
growing radicalization of Arab populations, escalating non-state terrorism, and the
deliberate efforts of regional rivals to destabilize each others’ governments. Existing
regimes in the region cling to power, but with insufficient domestic political support or
acquiescence to create coalitions and pursue effective balance of power strategies
necessary to contain the Iraq civil war. Because their appetite for direct state-to-state
conflict is limited, many regimes use sub- state actors to strike at their enemies.
Regional rivalries flare up as various players vie for influence and control.
Radicalization of Arab populations increases as sectarian strife radiates from Iraq.
In these circumstances, unforeseen events—such as an Iranian-style revolution in a
major Arab country—could radically alter the political landscape and reorder
foreign policy priorities in the region.
Instability = Iran Dominance

IRAN WOULD BECOME A MORE DOMINANT POWER IN AN ATTEMPT TO
SECURE ITS STANDING IN THE POWER VACUUM
Iran will look to agitate against America through proxies or agents in countries such
as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, or decide to challenge Turkey in Kurdistan. For the time being
Turkey’s involvement in Iraq’s north benefits Iran by subduing Kurdish aspirations for an independent state; however, a distinction must
be made again between Tehran’s acquiescence to occasional attacks against PKK positions in Iraq by the Turkish Army and an outright
Were Turkey to occupy the north, Iran would feel the need to assert
invasion and occupation.
its own influence in Iraq, possibly by entering the south under the guise of protecting
the Shia community there from the blowback from Turkey’s incursion. Dramatic
changes in Iran’s domestic power structure could also be a major driver. A
generation of leadership founded on the views of Ahmadinejad could see the
exporting of the Iranian revolution as the only solution to Sunni regional dominance.
Iran will use its allied terrorist groups as leverage with regimes like United Arab
Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. Should it be hit—or believe it is about to be—Iran will call upon
these terrorist groups to spread disorder and undermine the stability of these regimes
and others in the region. All the while, Iranian strikes via proxy on oil installations
such as Ras Tanora in Kuwait could ignite major conflict.
Iraq Instability = Saudi Instability

SECTARIAN FIGHTING IN IRAQ SPILLS OVER INTO SAUDI ARABIA, TURNING
THE REGION INTO ONE PLAGUED BY VIOLENCE
As the sectarian violence in Iraq continues, and the involvement of outside powers
becomes more apparent, Saudi Arabia will emerge as both a destabilizing agent in
Iraq via its support of Iraqi Sunni insurgents, and a target for desta- bilization
domestically via its own Shia minority. Saudi Arabia also provides shelter to
neighboring Bahrain’s ruling class, who is forced by angry Shia in Bahrain to seek
outside assistance. Saudi Arabia will effectively absorb Bahrain and turn it into a
Saudi province. In the event of a U.S. strike against Iran, Saudi Arabia will also be
vulnerable to a strike by Iran against the Saudi oil infrastructure—possibly an off-shore oil
platform or an oil-loading facility on the Gulf coast. Saudis are already pressuring Syria to taper its support for the jihadist
movement. They are also building a wall on the Iraqi border as a means of contain- ment. Additionally, they have stepped up security
in Shia neighborhoods and may turn a blind eye to U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear installations—as long as the U.S. missions are
successful.
A SPILLOVER FROM AN IRAQI CIVIL WAR WOULD DESTABILIZE SAUDI

ARABIA; IT IS IN THEIR BEST INTREST TO CONTAIN A CIVIL WAR
The Saudis’ backing of Sunni Islamists has already become a liability. The Saudis
now fear the al Qaedafication of their population and a spillover from Iraq. Iraq’s
status as a safe haven for al Qaeda is a scary prospect for the Saudis— scary enough
for them to begin building a wall to contain the mess in Iraq. At the same time, Saudi Arabia
must accept that it is not going to be a great regional military player on par with
Iran. The Saudis simply do not have an army capable of taming Iraq or facing off
against Iran. They do have tremendous soft power in the region, however, thanks to
their wealth and religious influence. Instability in Iraq will cause the Saudis to
encourage the emergence of a National Unity Dictator (see Scenario 1) by providing
financial and material help to make this happen. They will also provide support to
Sunni groups opposed to al Qaeda in Iraq. This would be Saudi Arabia’s contribution to a proxy war.
Middle Eastern War Escalates

MIDDLE EAST WAR IS WWIII
Bosco 06 [David, 7/23, “Could This Be the Start of World War III?” Senior Editor at Foreign Policy Magazine,
http://usc.glo.org/forums/0016/viewtopic.php?p=403&sid=95896c43b66ffa28f9932774a408bb4b]
ARMAGEDDON Could This Be the Start of World War III? As the Middle East
erupts, there are plenty of scenarios for global conflagration. By David Bosco, David Bosco is a
senior editor at Foreign Policy magazine. July 23, 2006 IT WAS LATE JUNE in Sarajevo when Gavrilo Princip
shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. After emptying his revolver, the young Serb nationalist jumped into the shallow
river that runs through the city and was quickly seized. But the events he set in motion could not be so easily restrained. Two
months later, Europe was at war. The understanding that small but violent acts can
spark global conflagration is etched into the world's consciousness. The reverberations from
Princip's shots in the summer of 1914 ultimately took the lives of more than 10 million people, shattered four empires and dragged more
than two dozen countries into war. This hot summer, as
the world watches the violence in the Middle
East, the awareness of peace's fragility is particularly acute. The bloodshed in
Lebanon appears to be part of a broader upsurge in unrest. Iraq is suffering through one of
its bloodiest months since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Taliban militants are burning schools and attacking villages in southern
Afghanistan as the United States and NATO struggle to defend that country's fragile government. Nuclear-armed India is still cleaning
up the wreckage from a large terrorist attack in which it suspects militants from rival Pakistan. The
world is awash in
weapons, North Korea and Iran are developing nuclear capabilities, and long-range missile
technology is spreading like a virus. Some see the start of a global conflict. "We're in the early stages
of what I would describe as the Third World War," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said last week. Certain
religious websites are abuzz with talk of Armageddon. There may be as much hyperbole as prophecy in the forecasts for world war. But
it's not hard to conjure ways that today's hot spots could ignite. Consider the following scenarios:
• Targeting Iran: As Israeli troops seek out and destroy Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon, intelligence officials spot a shipment of
longer-range Iranian missiles heading for Lebanon. The Israeli government decides to strike the convoy and Iranian nuclear facilities
simultaneously. After Iran has recovered from the shock, Revolutionary Guards surging across the border into Iraq, bent on striking
Governments in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia face violent
Israel's American allies.
street protests demanding retribution against Israel — and they eventually yield,
triggering a major regional war.
Middle Eastern War = Extinction

AND THE IMPACT IS EXTINCTION
Nassar 02 [Bahig, 11/25, Bahig NASSAR is a coordinator at the Coordinating Center of Arab Peace Organizations in Egypt. He puts special
effort in working together with European and American non-governmental organizations, http://www.inesglobal.org/BahigNassar.htm]
Wars in the Middle East are of a new type. Formerly, the possession of nuclear
weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union had prevented them, under the
balance of the nuclear terror, from launching war against each other. In the Middle
East, the possession of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction leads
to military clashes and wars. Instead of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, the United States and Israel are using
military force to prevent others from acquiring them, while they insist on maintaining their own weapons to pose deadly threats to other
nations. Butthe production, proliferation and threat or use of weapons of mass
destruction (nuclear chemical and biological) are among the major global problems which could
lead, if left unchecked, to the extinction of life on earth. Different from the limited
character of former wars, the current wars in the Middle East manipulate global
problems and escalate their dangers instead of solving them.
Escalation Bad – Terror [1 of 2]

IRAQ INSTABILITY ESCALATES, RADICALIZING POPULATIONS AND
INCREASING TERROR
Unresolved,
escalating sectarian strife in Iraq inevitably increases transnational threats
to regime stability throughout the region. Radicalization of populations intensifies
the struggle in other countries. In this way, as distinct from state actions, war spreads
in the region. This could happen in Lebanon, Syria and Bahrain. As a new Salafist generation emerges
in the region—via individuals coming from Iraq or influenced by what is going on there—
Salafism may emerge in other states. The Salafist generation has the most impact if it
is able to penetrate low-level military ranks, where key officers most instrumental in
past coup attempts are to be found. If Salafism spreads, regional armies may be
unwilling to put rebellions down. Inter- Sunni tensions may also play a critical role
in regional developments. The jihadi threat will continue, but its focus on population
radicalization will increase terror over time.
Escalation Bad – Terror [2 of 2]

INSTABILITY IN IRAQ WILL SPILLOVER TO NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES –
EXACERBATING TERROR OPERATIONS
Byman and Pollack 07 (Daniel and Kenneth, January, “Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover From an Iraqi Civil
War.” Daniel Byman is a Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and directs Georgetown Uiversity’s
Center for Peace and Security Studies. Kenneth Pollack is an expert on national security, military affairs and the Persian Gulf. He was
Director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council. He also spent seven years in the CIA as a Persian Gulf military
analyst. )
However, the greatest problems that the United States must be prepared to confront are the patterns of “spillover” by which civil wars
in one state can deleteriously affect another, or in some cases destabilize a region or create global threats. Spillover
is the
tendency of civil wars to impose burdens, create instability, and even trigger civil
wars in other, usually neighboring countries. In some cases, spillover can be as relatively mild as the
economic hardships and the limited numbers of refugees that Hungary and Romania coped with during the various Yugoslav civil wars
of the 1990s. At the other end of the spectrum, spillover can turn civil war into regional war—as Lebanon did in the 1970s and 1980s
—and can cause other civil wars in neighboring countries—just as the civil war in Rwanda triggered the catastrophic civil war in
next-door Congo. Unfortunately, Iraq
appears to possess most, if not all, of the factors that would
make spillover worse rather than better. Historically, six patterns of spillover have been the most harmful in
other cases of all-out civil war: Refugees. In addition to the humanitarian considerations for innocent civilians fleeing civil war,
refugees can create strategic problems. They represent large groupings of embittered people who serve as a ready recruiting pool for
armed groups still waging the civil war. As a result, they frequently involve foreign countries in the civil war as the neighboring
government attempts to prevent the refugee-based militias from attacking their country of origin, and/or the neighboring government
must protect the refugees from attack by their civil war enemies. Moreover, large refugee flows can overstrain the economies and even
change the demographic balances of small or weak neighboring states. Terrorism. Terrorists
often find a home in
states in civil war, as al-Qa‘ida did in Afghanistan. However, the civil wars themselves also
frequently breed new terrorist groups—Hizballah, the Palestine Liberation Orga-
nization, Hamas, the Groupe Islamique Armé (Armed Islamic Group) of Algeria, and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were all born of civil wars. Many of these groups start
by focusing on local targets but then shift to international attacks—usually against those they
believe are aiding their enemies in the civil war. Radicalization of neighboring populations. Neighboring populations often become
highly agitated and mobilized by developments in the civil war next door. Groups in one state may identify with co-religionists, co-
ethnics, or other groups with similar identities in a state embroiled in civil war. A civil war may also encourage groups in neighboring
states to demand, or even fight, for a reordering of their domestic political arrangements. Examples of this radicalization phenomenon
include the anger felt by ethnic Albanians in the Balkans at the treatment of Kosovar Albanians by the Serbian regime during the
Kosovo war—which might very well have pushed the Albanian government to intervene had NATO not done so instead—as well as
the decision by Syria’s Sunni Muslim Brotherhood to rise up against the ‘Alawi regime which led to a Syrian civil war from 1976-82.
Secession breeds secessionism. Some civil wars are caused by one group within a country seeking its independence, while in other
cases the civil war leads one group or another to seek its independence as the solution to its problems. Frequently, other groups in
similar circumstances (either in the country in civil war or in neighboring countries) may follow suit if the first group appears to have
achieved some degree of success. Thus Slovenia’s secession from Yugoslavia started the first of those civil wars, but it also provoked
Croatia to declare its independence, which forced Bos- nia to follow suit, which later convinced Kosovar Al- banian nationalists to try
for the same, and eventually provoked a secessionist movement among Albanians in Macedonia. Economic losses. Civil wars can be
there are the direct costs of caring for refugees, fighting
costly to other countries, particularly neighbors. First,
terrorism, and mounting major interventions, whether covert or overt. Beyond that, civil wars tend to scare off investment,
impose security and insurance costs on trade, disrupt transportation networks and supplier arrangements, and increase a state’s health
care burden, to name but a few. Neighborly interventions. The problems created by these other forms of
spillover often provoke neighboring states to intervene—to stop terrorism as Israel
tried repeatedly in Lebanon, to halt the flow of refugees as the Europeans tried in Yugoslavia, or to end (or respond
to) the radicalization of their own population as Syria did in Lebanon. These interventions usually turn out
badly for all involved. Local groups typically turn out to be poor proxies and are often unable
or unwilling to accomplish the objectives of their backers. This often provokes the intervening state to use its own military forces to do
the job itself. The result is that many civil wars become regional wars because once one country invades, other states often do the same,
Iraq is already manifesting all of
if only to prevent the initial invader from conquering the state in civil war.
these patterns of spillover. This suggests that these factors may intensify as the civil war
worsens, and argues that the United States should be bracing itself for particularly severe manifes- tations of spillover throughout
the Persian Gulf region.
Escalation Bad [Passion Inflammation] [1 of 2]

ESCALATION BAD – SPILLOVER, RADICALIZATION, REVOLUTION
Civil wars tend to inflame the passions of neighboring populations. This is often just a
matter of proximity: Chaos and slaughter five miles down the road has a much
greater emotional impact than a massacre 5,000 miles away. The problem worsens
whenever ethnic or religious groupings also spill across borders. Frequently, people
demand that their government intervene on behalf of their compatriots embroiled in
the civil war. Alternatively, they may aid their co-religionists or co-ethnics on their own --
taking in refugees, funneling money and guns, providing sanctuary. The Albanian government
came under heavy pressure from its people to support the Kosovar Albanians who were fighting for independence from the Serbs. As a
result, Tirana provided diplomatic support and covert aid to the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1998-99, and threatened to intervene to
prevent Serbia from crushing the Kosovars. Similarly, numerous Irish and Irish American groups clandestinely supported the Irish
Republican Army, providing money and guns to the group and lobbying Dublin and Washington. Sometimes,
radicalization works in the opposite direction if neighboring populations share the
grievances of their comrades across the border, and as a result are inspired to fight in
pursuit of similar goals in their own country. Although Sunni Syrians had chafed under the minority Alawite
dictatorship since the 1960s, members of the Muslim Brotherhood (the leading Sunni Arab opposition group) were spurred to action
when they saw Lebanese Sunni Arabs fighting to wrest a share of political power from the minority Maronite-dominated government in
Beirut. This spurred their own decision to organize against Hafez al-Assad's regime in Damascus. By the late 1970s, their resistance had
blossomed into civil war, but Assad's regime was not as weak as Lebanon's. In 1982, Assad razed the center of the city of Hama, a
Muslim Brotherhood stronghold, killing 20,000 to 40,000 people and snuffing out the revolt. Iraq'sneighbors are
vulnerable to this aspect of spillover. Iraq's own divisions are mirrored throughout
the region; for instance, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia all have sizable Shiite communities. In Saudi Arabia, Shiites make up
about 10 percent of the population, but they are heavily concentrated in its oil-rich Eastern Province. Bahrain's population is majority
Shiite, although the regime is Sunni. Likewise, Iran, Syria and Turkey all have important Kurdish minorities, which are geographically
concentrated adjacent to Iraqi Kurdistan. Populations
in some countries around Iraq are already
showing dangerous signs of radicalization. In March, after the Sunni jihadist bombing of the Shiite Askariya
shrine in Iraq, more than 100,000 Bahraini Shiites took to the streets in anger. In 2004, when U.S. forces were battling Iraqi Sunni
insurgents in Fallujah, large numbers of Bahraini Sunnis protested. There has been unrest in Iranian Kurdistan in the past year,
prompting Iran to deploy troops to the border and even shell Kurdish positions in Iraq. The Turks, too, have deployed additional forces
to the Iraqi border to prevent any movement of Kurdish forces between the two countries. Most ominous of all, tensions are
rising between Shiites and Sunnis in the key Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. As in Bahrain, many Saudi
Shiites saw the success of Iraq's Shiites and are now demanding better political and economic treatment. The government made a few
initial concessions, but now the kingdom's Sunnis are openly accusing the Shiites of heresy. Religious
leaders on both
sides have begun to warn of a coming civil war or schism within Islam. The horrors of
such a split are on display only miles away in Iraq. Iraq's neighbors are just as fractured as Iraq itself.
Should Iraq fragment, voices for secession elsewhere will gain strength. The dynamic
is clear: One oppressed group with a sense of national identity stakes a claim to
independence and goes to war to achieve it. As long as that group isn't crushed
immediately, others with similar goals can be inspired to do the same. The various civil wars in
the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s provide a good example. Slovenia was determined to declare independence, which led the Croats to
follow suit. When the Serbs opposed Croatian secession from Yugoslavia by force, the first of the Yugoslav civil wars broke out. The
European Union foolishly recognized both Slovene and Croatian independence, hoping that would end the bloodshed. However, many
Bosnian Muslims wanted independence, and when they saw the Slovenes and Croats rewarded for their revolts, they pursued the same
course. The new Bosnian government feared that if it did not declare independence, Serbia and Croatia would gobble up the respective
Serb- and Croat-inhabited parts of their country. When Bosnia held a March 1992 referendum on independence, 98 percent voted in
favor. The barricades went up all over Sarajevo the next day, kicking off the worst of the Balkan civil wars. It didn't stop there. The
eventual success of the Bosnians -- even after four years of war -- was an important element in the thinking of Kosovar Albanians when
they agitated against the Serbian government in 1997-98. Serbian repression sparked an escalation toward independence that ended in
Escalation Bad [Passion Inflammation] [2 of 2]

the 1999 Kosovo War between NATO and Serbia. Kosovo, in turn, inspired Albanians in Macedonia to launch a guerrilla war against the
Skopje government in hope of achieving the same or better. In Iraq's case, the first candidate for secession is obvious: Kurdistan. If
any group on Earth deserves its own country, it is surely the Kurds -- a distinct nation of 25 million people living in a geographically
contiguous space with their own language and culture. However, if the Iraqi Kurds declare their independence and are protected by the
international community, it is not hard to imagine Kurdish groups in Turkey and Iran following suit. Moreover, the Kurds are not the
only candidates. Shiite leader Abdul Aziz Hakim has called for autonomy for Iraq's Shiite regions -- a likely precursor for demands of
outright independence. If Iraqi Shiites try to split off, other Shiites in the Gulf region might agitate against their own regimes along
if ethnic or sectarian self-determination begins spreading throughout
similar lines. Moreover,
the Middle East more generally, secessionist movements could also spread to unlikely
groups such as Iran's minority Azeri and Baluch populations.
Escalation Bad – Refugee Flow = Iran Dominance

ESCALATION BAD – INSTABILITY LEADS TO AN INFLUX OF REFUGEES
CAUSING INSTABILITY AND IRAN DOMINANCE
Byman 07 (Daniel L, 2/18, “Iran’s Iraq Strategy: What Tehran is Really Up To,” The brookings Institute. Daniel Byman is a Senior
Fellow of Foreign Policy at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2007/0218iran_byman.aspx)
Iran is less nervous than it was in 2003, but it remains understandably anxious. The long-term role of
U.S. forces and the future of the Shiite regime in Iraq are open questions. Instability
in Iraq could lead to waves of refugees returning to Iran, as happened during the
Iran-Iraq war, and could excite unrest among Iran's Kurdish and Arab populations.
Expecting an American withdrawal sooner or later, Iran wants to prepare for a
postwar era by maximizing its influence now.
Escalation Bad – Refugees [1 of 2]

INSTABILITY SPILLS OVER AND TRIGGERS REFUGEE FLOWS WHICH
PROVOKE MILITIAS, INSTABILITY, ECON CRASHES, CIVIL WAR
Byman and Pollack 07 (Daniel and Kenneth. January. “Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover From an Iraqi Civil
analyst.
is the
next-door Congo. Unfortunately,
Iraq appears to possess most, if not all, of the factors that
would make spillover worse rather than better. Historically, six patterns of spillover have been the most
harmful in other cases of all-out civil war: Refugees. In addition to the humanitarian considerations for innocent civilians fleeing civil
war, refugeescan create strategic problems. They represent large groupings of
embittered people who serve as a ready recruiting pool for armed groups still waging
the civil war. As a result, they frequently involve foreign countries in the civil war
as the neighboring government attempts to prevent the refugee-based militias from
attacking their country of origin, and/or the neighboring government must protect
the refugees from attack by their civil war enemies. Moreover, large refugee flows can
overstrain the economies and even change the demographic balances of small or
weak neighboring states. Terrorism. Terrorists often find a home in states in civil war, as al-Qa‘ida did in
Afghanistan. However, the civil wars themselves also frequently breed new terrorist groups—Hizballah, the Palestine Liberation
Orga- nization, Hamas, the Groupe Islamique Armé (Armed Islamic Group) of Algeria, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were
all born of civil wars. Many of these groups start by focusing on local targets but then shift to international attacks—usually against
those they believe are aiding their enemies in the civil war. Radicalization of neighboring populations. Neigh- boring populations
often become highly agitated and mobilized by developments in the civil war next door. Groups in one state may identify with co-
religionists, co-ethnics, or other groups with similar identities in a state embroiled in civil war. A civil war may also encourage groups
in neighboring states to demand, or even fight, for a reordering of their domestic political arrangements. Examples of this radicalization
phenomenon include the anger felt by ethnic Albanians in the Balkans at the treatment of Kosovar Albanians by the Serbian regime
during the Kosovo war—which might very well have pushed the Albanian government to intervene had NATO not done so instead—as
well as the decision by Syria’s Sunni Muslim Brotherhood to rise up against the ‘Alawi regime which led to a Syrian civil war from
1976-82. Secession breeds secessionism. Some civil wars are caused by one group within a country seeking its independence, while
in other cases the civil war leads one group or another to seek its independence as the solution to its problems. Frequently, other groups
in similar circumstances (either in the country in civil war or in neighboring countries) may follow suit if the first group appears to
have achieved some degree of success. Thus Slovenia’s secession from Yugoslavia started the first of those civil wars, but it also
provoked Croatia to declare its independence, which forced Bos- nia to follow suit, which later convinced Kosovar Al- banian
nationalists to try for the same, and eventually provoked a secessionist movement among Albanians in Macedonia. Economic losses.
Civil wars can be costly to other countries, particularly neighbors. First, there are
the direct costs of caring for refugees, fighting terrorism, and mounting major interventions, whether covert or
overt. Beyond that, civil wars tend to scare off investment, impose security and insurance costs on trade, disrupt transportation
networks and supplier arrangements, and increase a state’s health care burden, to name but a few. Neighborly interventions. The
problems created by these other forms of spillover often provoke neighboring
states to intervene—to stop terrorism as Israel tried repeatedly in Lebanon, to halt
the flow of refugees as the Europeans tried in Yugoslavia, or to end (or respond to) the radicalization
of their own population as Syria did in Lebanon. These interventions usually turn out badly for all involved. Local groups
typically turn out to be poor proxies and are often unable or unwilling to accomplish
the objectives of their backers. This often provokes the intervening state to use its
own military forces to do the job itself. The result is that many civil wars become
regional wars because once one country invades, other states often do the same, if
only to prevent the initial invader from conquering the state in civil war.
Escalation Bad – Refugees [2 of 2]
Iraq is already manifesting all of these patterns of spillover. This suggests that these factors
may intensify as the civil war worsens, and argues that the United States should be bracing itself for particularly
severe manifes- tations of spillover throughout the Persian Gulf region.
Escalation Bad – Laundry List [1 of 2]

INSTABILITY TRIGGERS REGIONAL WAR, REFUGEE FLOW, MILITIAS, ECON
CRASHES, TERROR, RADICALIZATION, COSTS ON TRADE, TRANSPORTATION
DISRUPTION
Byman and Pollack 07 (Daniel and Kenneth. January. “Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover From an Iraqi Civil
analyst. )
is the
next-door Congo. Unfortunately, Iraq appears to possess most, if not all, of the factors that
would make spillover worse rather than better. Historically, six patterns of spillover have been the most
harmful in other cases of all-out civil war: Refugees. In addition to the humanitarian considerations
for innocent civilians fleeing civil war, refugees can create strategic problems. They
represent large groupings of embittered people who serve as a ready recruiting pool
for armed groups still waging the civil war. As a result, they frequently involve
foreign countries in the civil war as the neighboring government attempts to
prevent the refugee-based militias from attacking their country of origin, and/or the
neighboring government must protect the refugees from attack by their civil war
enemies. Moreover, large refugee flows can overstrain the economies and even change
the demographic balances of small or weak neighboring states. Terrorism. Terrorists
often find a home in states in civil war, as al-Qa‘ida did in Afghanistan. However, the
civil wars themselves also frequently breed new terrorist groups—Hizballah, the
Palestine Liberation Orga- nization, Hamas, the Groupe Islamique Armé (Armed Islamic
Group) of Algeria, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were all born of civil
wars. Many of these groups start by focusing on local targets but then shift to
international attacks—usually against those they believe are aiding their enemies in
the civil war. Radicalization of neighboring populations. Neigh- boring populations
often become highly agitated and mobilized by developments in the civil war next
door. Groups in one state may identify with co-religionists, co-ethnics, or other
groups with similar identities in a state embroiled in civil war. A civil war may also
encourage groups in neighboring states to demand, or even fight, for a reordering
of their domestic political arrangements. Examples of this radicalization phenomenon include the anger felt
by ethnic Albanians in the Balkans at the treatment of Kosovar Albanians by the Serbian regime during the Kosovo war—which might
very well have pushed the Albanian government to intervene had NATO not done so instead—as well as the decision by Syria’s Sunni
Muslim Brotherhood to rise up against the ‘Alawi regime which led to a Syrian civil war from 1976-82. Secession breeds
secessionism. Some civil wars are caused by one group within a country seeking its independence, while in other cases the civil war
leads one group or another to seek its independence as the solution to its problems. Frequently, other groups in similar circumstances
(either in the country in civil war or in neighboring countries) may follow suit if the first group appears to have achieved some degree
of success. Thus Slovenia’s secession from Yugoslavia started the first of those civil wars, but it also provoked Croatia to declare its
independence, which forced Bos- nia to follow suit, which later convinced Kosovar Al- banian nationalists to try for the same, and
eventually provoked a secessionist movement among Albanians in Macedonia. Economic losses.
Civil wars can be
costly to other countries, particularly neighbors. First, there are the direct costs of
caring for refugees, fighting terrorism, and mounting major interventions, whether
covert or overt. Beyond that, civil wars tend to scare off investment, impose
security and insurance costs on trade, disrupt transportation networks and supplier
Escalation Bad – Laundry List [2 of 2]
arrangements, and increase a state’s health care burden, to name but a few.
Neighborly interventions. The problems created by these other forms of spillover
often provoke neighboring states to intervene—to stop terrorism as Israel tried
repeatedly in Lebanon, to halt the flow of refugees as the Europeans tried in
Yugoslavia, or to end (or respond to) the radicalization of their own population as
Syria did in Lebanon. These interventions usually turn out badly for all involved.
Local groups typically turn out to be poor proxies and are often unable or unwilling to accomplish the
objectives of their backers. This often provokes the intervening state to use its own military
forces to do the job itself. The result is that many civil wars become regional wars
because once one country invades, other states often do the same, if only to prevent
the initial invader from conquering the state in civil war. Iraq is already manifesting
all of these patterns of spillover. This suggests that these factors may intensify as the
civil war worsens, and argues that the United States should be bracing itself for particularly severe manifes- tations of
spillover throughout the Persian Gulf region.
Escalation Bad – Laundry List 2

ESCALATION BAD – REFUGEES, INSTABILITY, UNSTOPPABLE CIVIL WAR,
COMPETITION, REVOLUTION, RADICALIZATION, SECESSION
The consequences of an all-out civil war in Iraq could be dire. Considering the experiences of recent
such conflicts, hundreds of thousands of people may die. Refugees and displaced people
could number in the millions. However, the greatest threat that the United States would
face from civil war in Iraq is from the spillover -- the burdens, the instability, the
copycat secession attempts and even the follow-on wars that could emerge in
neighboring countries. Welcome to the new "new Middle East" -- a region where civil
wars could follow one after another, like so many Cold War dominoes. And unlike
communism, these dominoes may actually fall. For all the recent attention on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict,
far more people died in Iraq over the past month than in Israel and Lebanon, and tens of thousands have been killed from the fighting
and criminal activity since the U.S. occupation began. Additional signs of civil war abound. Refugees and
displaced people number in the hundreds of thousands. Militias continue to
proliferate. The sense of being an "Iraqi" is evaporating. Considering how many mistakes the United States has made in Iraq, how
much time has been squandered, and how difficult the task is, even a serious course correction in Washington and Baghdad may only
postpone the inevitable. Iraq displays many of the conditions most conducive to spillover. The
country's ethnic, tribal and religious groups are also found in neighboring states, and
they share many of the same grievances. Iraq has a history of violence with its
neighbors, which has fostered desires for vengeance and fomented constant clashes.
Iraq also possesses resources that its neighbors covet -- oil being the most obvious, but
important religious shrines also figure in the mix -- and its borders are porous. Civil
wars -- whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or the Middle East -- tend to spread across borders. For example, the effects
of the Jewish-Palestinian conflict, which began in the 1920s and continued even after formal hostilities ended in 1948, contributed to the
1956 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars, provoked a civil war in Jordan in 1970-71 and then triggered the Lebanese civil war of 1975-90. In
turn, the Lebanese conflict helped spark civil war in Syria in 1976-82. With
an all-out civil war looming in Iraq,
Washington must decide how to deal with the most common and dangerous ways such conflicts spill across national boundaries. Only
by understanding the refugee crises, terrorism, radicalization of neighboring
populations, copycat secessions and foreign interventions that such wars frequently
spark can we begin to plan for how to cope with them in the months and years ahead.
Global Warming = Middle East Tension [1 of 3]

GLOBAL WARMING WOULD HAVE CATASTROPHIC IMPACTS ON MIDDLE EAST
STABILITY – EXACERBATES WATER CONFLICTS IN A REGION ALREADY
HOSTILE, LEADING TO ARMED CONFLICT AND ECON DISRUPTIONS
The CNA Corporation 07 [The CNA Corporation is a nonprofit organization that conducts indepth, independent research
and analysis for more than sixty years. http://SecurityAndClimate.cna.org/report/SecurityandClimate_Final.pdf]
The Middle East has always been associated with two natural resources, oil (because of its abundance) and water (because of its
scarcity). The Persian Gulf contains more than half (57 percent) of the world’s oil reserves, and about 45 percent of the world’s natural
gas reserves. And because its production costs are among the world’s lowest, the Persian
Gulf region is likely to remain the world’s largest oil exporter for the foreseeable
future. At the end of 2003, Persian Gulf countries produced about 32 percent of the
world’s oil. Because of its enormous oil endowment, the Middle East is one of the
most strategically significant regions of the world. The security impacts of climate
change on the Middle East are greatly magnified by its historical and current levels
of international conflict, and competition for increasingly scarce resources may
exacerbate the level of conflict. This is the region of the world in which the U.S. is most engaged militarily.
WATER: INCREASING STRESS ON AN EXISTING SHORTAGE In this region, water resources are a
critical issue; throughout history, cultures here have flourished around particular water sources. With the
population explosion underway, water will become even more critical. Of the countries in the
Middle East, only Egypt, Iran, and Turkey have abundant fresh water resources. Roughly two-thirds of the Arab
world depends on sources outside their borders for water. The most direct effect of
climate change to be felt in the Middle East will be a reduction in precipitation. But the
change will not be uniform across the region. The flows of the Jordan and Yarmuk rivers are likely to
be reduced, leading to significant water stress in Israel and Jordan, where water
demand already exceeds supply. Exacerbation of water shortages in those two
countries and in Oman, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq are likely to threaten conventional
crop production, and salinization of coastal aquifers could further threaten
agriculture in those regions. SEA LEVEL RISE Sea level rise combined with increased
water demand from growing populations are likely to exacerbate saltwater intrusion
into coastal fresh water aquifers, already a considerable problem for the Gaza Strip.
Salinization of coastal aquifers could further threaten agriculture in these regions.
Additional loss of arable land and decreases in food security could encourage
migration within the Middle East and Africa, and from the Middle East to Europe
and elsewhere. INFLAMING A REGION OF POLITICAL INSTABILITY Climate change has the
potential to exacerbate tensions over water as precipitation patterns change,
declining by as much as 60 percent in some areas. In addition, the region already suffers
from fragile governments and infrastructures, and as a result is susceptible to
natural disasters. Overlaying this is a long history of animosity among countries and
religious groups. With most of the world’s oil being in the Middle East and the industrialized and industrializing nations
competing for this resource, the potential for escalating tensions, economic disruption, and
armed conflict is great.

FAILURE TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE WOULD ELEVATE CONFLICT IN THE
MIDDLE EAST – POPULATION DISPLACEMENT AND EXTREMISM
Zinni 07 (General Anthony C., “On Climate Change, Instability and Terrorism” Zinni was the former Commander-in-Chief of the
U.S. central Command, CNA Corporation. http://SecurityAndClimate.cna.org/report/SecurityandClimate_Final.pdf)
Gen. Zinni referenced the inevitability of climate change, with global temperatures sure to increase. But he also stressed that the
intensity of those changes could be reduced if the U.S. helps lead the way to a global reduction in carbon emissions. He urged action
now, even if the costs of action seem high. “We will pay for this one way or another,” he said. “We
will pay to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind.
Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives.
There will be a human toll. “There is no way out of this that does not have real costs
attached to it. That has to hit home.” A starting point in understanding this connection might be to
“look at how climate change effects could drive populations to migrate,” Gen. Zinni said.
“Where do these people move? And what kinds of conflicts might result from their
migration? You see this in Africa today with the flow of migrations. It becomes difficult for the
neighboring countries. It can be a huge burden for the host country, and that
burden becomes greater if the international community is overwhelmed by these
occurrences. “You may also have a population that is traumatized by an event or a
change in conditions triggered by climate change,” Gen. Zinni said. “If the government
there is not able to cope with the effects, and if other institutions are unable to cope,
then you can be faced with a collapsing state. And these end up as breeding
grounds for instability, for insurgencies, for warlords. You start to see real
extremism. These places act like Petri dishes for extremism and for terrorist
networks.” In describing the Middle East, the former CENTCOM commander said, “The existing
situation makes this place more susceptible to problems. Even small changes may
have a greater impact here than they may have elsewhere. You already have great
tension over water. These are cultures often built around a single source of water. So
any stresses on the rivers and aq“ It’s not hard to make the connection between
climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism.”

GLOBAL WARMING ELEVATES TENSIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST, FORCING U.S.
INTERVENTION
The CNA Corporation 07 (The CNA Corporation is a nonprofit organization that conducts indepth, independent research
and analysis for more than sixty years. http://SecurityAndClimate.cna.org/report/SecurityandClimate_Final.pdf)
Many governments in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are already on edge in terms of
their ability to provide basic needs: food, water, shelter and stability. Projected climate change
will exacerbate the problems in these regions and add to the problems of effective
governance. Unlike most conventional security threats that involve a single entity acting in specific ways
at different points in time, climate change has the potential to result in multiple chronic
conditions, occurring globally within the same time frame. Economic and
environmental conditions in these already fragile areas will further erode as food
production declines, diseases increase, clean water becomes increasingly scarce, and
populations migrate in search of resources. Weakened and failing governments, with an
already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflict, extremism, and
movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies. The U.S. may
be drawn more frequently into these situations to help to provide relief, rescue, and logistics,
or to stabilize conditions before conflicts arise. Because climate change also has the potential
to create natural and humanitarian disasters on a scale far beyond those we see
today, its consequences will likely foster political instability where societal demands
exceed the capacity of governments to cope. As a result, the U.S. may also be called
upon to undertake stability and reconstruction efforts once a conflict has begun.
Uniqueness Overwhelms the Link

OIL PRICES ARE IRRELEVANT, IRAQ WILL REMAIN UNSTABLE –
UNCONTROLLED SECRETARIAN VIOLENCE
NY Times 7/16 (2008, “Suicide Bombers Kill 33 Iraq Recruits,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?scp=1&sq=Peace,%20Iraq,%20Middle%20East&st=cse”)
For all the statistics showing improved security in Iraq, many parts of the country
remain astoundingly violent, places where bullet-ridden bodies turn up every day and
bombs destroy lives and families in an instant. Nowhere is that more true than in
Diyala, where Sunni Arab extremists have found refuge in the verdant river valley
northeast of the provincial capital of Baquba. But in the aftermath of Tuesday
morning’s attack, which struck more than 200 recruits at the Saad military base just east of Baquba, the wounded recruits and
other survivors trained their fury at more than one culprit. The recruitment event had been advertised well in advance, but there
was no security to prevent a bomber from entering the compound. “Our sons were killed because
they want us to live with integrity, and because they want to earn a living for us,” said the mother of one dead recruit. “The military
killed my son! Why don’t security forces protect us? How do they let all these young men outside become easy targets for the suicide
bombers?” Abu Ahmed, the father of another victim, cried and demanded that the commanders of the base be prosecuted. “They knew
the risks, but they did nothing about it,” he said.
“Dozens of men are killed every day without any tough
response from the government.” Hours after the attacks, a Diyala security official admitted that the recruitment was
badly planned. The commanders of the camp, the official said, “didn’t take any precautions to protect the volunteers who died in this
massacre.” That was a widely held view among recruits wounded in the attacks, which came less than a minute apart. “There was no
checkpoint or any kind of security,” said Taher Ghani, wounded in his back and lower legs. “You could cross the main gate without
anybody asking you where you were going.” Mr. Ghani, who called the recruitment a “golden opportunity” to advance himself,
described the aftermath: “Human flesh and blood flew in every direction in front of my eyes, and I fainted. One of my friends was killed,
and the other is still missing. “I just want to know who did this to us,” he added. “We are young and we want to live in peace, and we
don’t want to steal or become criminals. We just want to live for at least for a few minutes in peace. We are fed up with life in the land of
death and blood.” One doctor at a Baquba hospital said two severed heads were found that appeared to be those of the bombers. He said
wounds suffered by the recruits showed that the suicide belts “contained metal balls intended to cause serious damage and increase the
casualties.” Eighteen of the wounded recruits “have serious injuries in the head and chest, with a possibility of losing some of them in
the next few hours,” he said. Iraqi
officials have announced an imminent military operation in
Diyala, one that may prove more difficult than other recent Iraqi campaigns. In
operations in Basra, Amara and the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, the Iraqi
troops faced Shiite militias, and all three operations essentially ended in truces that
allowed militia fighters to melt away.
Turn – Oil Consumption = Terror

CONTINUED U.S. PRESENCE AND CONSUMPTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
FINANCES TERROR OPERATIONS
Sandalow 08 (David, 5/22, “Rising Oil Prices, Declining National Security”, Brookings Institute. David Sandalow is a senior Fellow
in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institute. http://www.brookings.edu/testimony/2008/0522_oil_sandalow.aspx)
For more than 50 years, the need to protect oil flows has shaped U.S. policy and
relationships in the Persian Gulf. During the Cold War, we supported the Shah of Iran in part to keep oil flowing
from the region. In 1980, President Carter declared that attempts by outside forces to gain control of the Persian Gulf would be “repelled
by any means necessary, including military force.” In 1991, with Saddam Hussein in Kuwait, President George H.W. Bush told Congress
that war was necessary because “[v]ital economic interests are at risk…Iraq itself controls some 10% of the world’s proven oil reserves.
Iraq plus Kuwait controls twice that.” After removing Saddam from Kuwait in 1991, U.S. troops remained in Saudi Arabia where their
These steps to secure oil flows have come at a cost. By making us
presence bred great resentment.
central players in a region torn by ancient rivalries, oil dependence has exposed us to
resentment, vulnerability and attack. Osama bin Laden’s first fatwa, in 1996, was titled “Declaration of War
against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” Today, deep resentment of the U.S. role in
the Persian Gulf remains a powerful recruitment tool for Islamic fundamentalists. Yet
the United States faces severe constraints in responding to this resentment. With half
the world’s proven oil reserves, the world’s cheapest oil and the world’s only spare
production capacity, the Persian Gulf will remain an indispensable region for the
global economy so long as modern vehicles run only on oil. To protect oil flows, the
U.S. policymakers will feel compelled to maintain relationships and exert power in
the region in ways likely to fuel Islamic terrorists. Compounding these problems, the huge money
flows into the Persian Gulf from oil purchases help finance terrorist networks. Al
Qaeda raises funds from an extensive global network, with Islamic charities and
NGOs playing an important role. Saudi money provides critical support for
madrassas with virulent anti-American views. The sharp increase in oil prices in
recent months deepens these problems, further enriching those who fund terrorists
committed to our destruction.
Turn – High Oil Prices = Terror

HIGH OIL PRICES FINANCE EXTREMISTS, SPREADING ANTI-AMERICAN
SENTIMENT ACROSS ISLAM
Friedman 07 (Thomas, 4/15, “The Power of Green”. Thomas Friedman is an internationally acclaimed journalist and author
working for the New York Times as a Foreign Affairs Correspondent. He has won two Pulitzer prizes for international reporting and
focuses on foreign policy and economics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15green.t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=First%20Law%20of%20Petropolitics&st=cse&
scp=2)
Islam has always been practiced in different forms. Some are more embracing of modernity,
reinterpretation of the Koran and tolerance of other faiths, like Sufi Islam or the populist Islam of Egypt, Ottoman Turkey and Indonesia.
Some strands, like Salafi Islam — followed by the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and by
Al Qaeda — believe Islam should be returned to an austere form practiced in the time
of the Prophet Muhammad, a form hostile to modernity, science, “infidels” and
women’s rights. By enriching the Saudi and Iranian treasuries via our gasoline
purchases, we are financing the export of the Saudi puritanical brand of Sunni Islam
and the Iranian fundamentalist brand of Shiite Islam, tilting the Muslim world in a
more intolerant direction. At the Muslim fringe, this creates more recruits for the
Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Sunni suicide bomb squads of Iraq; at
the Muslim center, it creates a much bigger constituency of people who applaud
suicide bombers as martyrs. The Saudi Islamic export drive first went into high gear
after extreme fundamentalists challenged the Muslim credentials of the Saudi ruling
family by taking over the Grand Mosque of Mecca in 1979 — a year that coincided with the Iranian revolution and a
huge rise in oil prices. The attack on the Grand Mosque by these Koran-and-rifle-wielding Islamic militants shook the Saudi
ruling family to its core. The al-Sauds responded to this challenge to their religious bona fides
by becoming outwardly more religious. They gave their official Wahhabi religious
establishment even more power to impose Islam on public life. Awash in cash thanks
to the spike in oil prices, the Saudi government and charities also spent hundreds of
millions of dollars endowing mosques, youth clubs and Muslim schools all over the
world, ensuring that Wahhabi imams, teachers and textbooks would preach Saudi-
style Islam. Eventually, notes Lawrence Wright in “The Looming Tower,” his history of Al Qaeda, “Saudi Arabia,
which constitutes only 1 percent of the world Muslim population, would support 90
percent of the expenses of the entire faith, overriding other traditions of Islam.”
Turn – Saudi Arabian Oil Revenues = Insurgency

SAUDI ARABIA’S OIL REVENUES ARE FUNNELED INTO IRAQ TOWARDS
INSURGENT OPERATIONS
Friedman 07 (Thomas, 4/15, “The Power of Green”. Thomas Friedman is an internationally acclaimed journalist and author
working for the New York Times as a Foreign Affairs Correspondent. He has won two Pulitzer prizes for international reporting and
focuses on foreign policy and economics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15green.t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=First%20Law%20of%20Petropolitics&st=cse&
scp=2)
Saudi mosques and wealthy donors have also funneled cash to the Sunni insurgents in
Iraq. The Associated Press reported from Cairo in December: “Several drivers interviewed by the A.P. in
Middle East capitals said Saudis have been using religious events, like the hajj
pilgrimage to Mecca and a smaller pilgrimage, as cover for illicit money transfers.
Some money, they said, is carried into Iraq on buses with returning pilgrims. ‘They sent boxes
full of dollars and asked me to deliver them to certain addresses in Iraq,’ said one driver. ... ‘I know it is being sent to the resistance, and
if I don’t take it with me, they will kill me.’ ” No wonder more Americans have concluded that conserving oil to put less money in the
hands of hostile forces is now a geostrategic imperative. President Bush’s
refusal to do anything meaningful
after 9/11 to reduce our gasoline usage really amounts to a policy of “No Mullah Left
Behind.” James Woolsey, the former C.I.A. director, minces no words: “We are funding
the rope for the hanging of ourselves.
Turn – Iran Destabilizes Iraq [1 of 2]

IRAN IS WORKING IN IRAQ TO DESTABILIZE IT – TRAINING, SUPPLYING,
FINANCING TERROR GROUPS
Phillips 4/30 (James, 2007, James Phillips is the Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Douglas and Sarah
Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He has written extensively on Middle Eastern issues and
international terrorism since 1978. Phillips is a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, a prestigious bipartisan group
dedicated to winning the war on terrorism. He also is a member of the Board of Editors of Middle East Quarterly , the leading
conservative journal of Middle Eastern policy studies. Before joining Heritage in 1979, Phillips was a Research Fellow at the
Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress and a former Joint Doctoral Research Fellow at the East-West Center . He
received a Bachelor's Degree in International Relations from Brown University as well as a Master's Degree and a M.A.L.D. in
International Security Studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University . “Iran’s Hostile Policies in Iraq”, The
Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/bg2030.cfm)
While Iran's diplomats and political leaders maintain correct ties with the Iraqi
government, particularly the Shiite parties that form the biggest bloc in the ruling
coalition, the Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) maintain links to the shadowy Shiite
militias that seek to infiltrate and subvert government institutions. While Iran's armed forces pro
tect the state, the Revolutionary Guards are charged with protecting and advancing the
interests of Iran's Islamic revolution. The Revolutionary Guards gained notoriety in March 2007 when they
captured 15 British sailors and marines who were patrolling the Shatt al-Arab, a disputed estuary that marks the boundary between Iran
and Iraq. This operation was designed to humiliate the British, demonstrate Iranian power, enhance Tehran's prestige in the eyes of anti-
West ern Muslim movements, and gain leverage for Iran in its war of nerves with the United States. The Revolutionary
Guards have long maintained a presence inside Iraq, dating back to the 1980– 1988 Iran–Iraq war, when
they operated behind Iraqi lines, often in Iraq's Kurdish areas in coopera tion with the Kurdish pesh merga militia. They flowed
into Iraq in greater numbers in the runup to the 2003 war and were well established before the
conventional fighting had stopped. Much of Iran's subversive activity inside Iraq has been
conducted by the al-Quds (Jerusalem) Force, an elite special operations unit within the
Revolutionary Guards. According to an officer in the Revolutionary Guards who defected, "The scale and breadth of Quds
Force operations in Iraq are far beyond what we did even during the war with Saddam.” The Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force plays a
role in Iraq today that is similar to the destabilizing role it has played in Lebanon for many years. In Iraq, it
provides Iranian
arms, training, intelligence, and logistical support to anti-American Iraqi forces. Most of
this support goes to Shiite groups such as the Mahdi Army and SCIRI's Badr militia, but the Quds Force
also cooperates with the Kurdish political parties. Recently, Iranian arms were
discovered at a safe house controlled by Sunni insurgents. In addition to forging a working
relationship with Iraqi militias, Iran's Revolutionary Guards may also be seeking to establish
more direct control over militia splinter groups. Mid-level commanders within the Mahdi Army claim that
the Revolutionary Guards have recruited and financed up to 3,000 defectors from
their militia, many of whom have traveled to Iran for training by the Quds Force.
Although these reports may be a smokescreen promulgated by Mahdi militia commanders to deflect blame for attacks by "rogue
elements," the
Revolutionary Guards could be seeking to exploit internal differences
within the militia to detach splinter groups and reassemble them into a more pliable
organization. Iran pursued a similar strategy in Lebanon in the early 1980s when it engineered a split in the Amal militia to form
Islamic Amal, which evolved into Hezbollah.[6] Despite the threat of Iranian subversion, Quds Force officers have succeeded in
cultivating covert links with various Iraqi political groups. In Decem ber 2006, American forces arrested Mohsin Chizari, the operational
commander of the Quds Force in Iraq, at a SCIRI compound. He was subsequently released along with another Iranian and was expelled
by the Iraqi authorities. On January 11, five suspected members of the Quds Force were arrested in Irbil, which is in territory controlled
Quds Force operatives are
by the Kurdish regional government. The five are still being held by U.S. forces.
believed to be a major channel for transferring sophisticated Iranian-made bombs to
anti-American militias in Iraq. These explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) are
lethal shaped charges that can propel molten metal through the armor of the heaviest
tanks. They can be camouflaged in Styrofoam rocks and set off by infrared devices.
Iran developed much of this tech nology during the long and bloody war of attrition in Lebanon, where its client militia/terrorist group
Hezbollah fought the Israelis from 1982 to 2000 and again in the summer of 2006. U.S. officials have revealed
Turn – Iran Destabilizes Iraq [2 of 2]
concrete evidence that Iran has provided EFPs, rocket-propelled grenades, 60 mm
mortar shells, and 81 mm mortar shells to Iraqi groups hostile to the U.S. The RPG-
[CARD CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE – NO TEXT DELETED]
29, an advanced anti-tank weapon, also turned up in the hands of Iraqi Shiite militias
in 2006. Previously, Hezbollah used RPG-29s in Lebanon, which is circumstantial
evidence of Iranian support for Iraqi forces hostile to the American military presence.
No Link – Oil Prices Will Stay High

OTHER FACTORS ACCOUNT FOR HIGH PRICES – DEMAND IS NOT THE ONLY
FUELING DYNAMIC
Pirog 05 [Robert, 6/9, “World Oil Demand and its Effect on Oil Prices,” CRS Report for Congress, Robert Pirog is a Specialist in Energy
Economics and Policy Resources, Science, and Industry Division at CRS,
https://www.policyarchive.org/bitstream/handle/10207/2175/RL32530_20050609.pdf?sequence=2]
A wide variety of cyclic and short term factors have converged in such a way that the
growth of demand has been unexpectedly high causing upward pressure on oil prices.
Those factors which have been identified as contributing to the high price of oil
include the resumption of relatively rapid growth rates of gross domestic product in
many countries around the world, a declining value of the U.S. dollar, gasoline prices,
the changing structure of the oil industry, OPEC policies, and the persistently low
levels of U.S. crude oil and gasoline inventories.
No Impact – Insurgency Fails

INSURGENCY WILL FAIL – EMPIRICALLY PROVEN
CDDRL 06 (March, Center for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law, Participants include Jamal Benomar of the United Nations,
Ambassador Barbara Bodine of Harvard University, Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, and Deborah Gordon of
the Center for International Security and Cooperation.)
The U.S. military’s learning curve, in response to these changing insurgent tactics, was delayed by cognitive dissonance in 2003. Now,
the military has a number of models on which to fashion future operations, including Tal Afar, Mosul, and Samara. One presenter noted
the decrease in U.S. military casualties but others questioned if that was due to greater caution as opposed to a degradation of insurgent
capabilities. Some also pointed out that Iraqi deaths have increased recently, and the presenter responded that the latter statistic was to
be expected, given the larger numbers of Iraqi troops involved. The military has learned that historically,
insurgencies
have ended in a number of ways: through foreign pressure, withdrawal of foreign
support, war fatigue or exhaustion, political calculations on the part of insurgents to
secure their community against competition, the capture of a community leader,
collapsed resolve, or a surge in inter- communal violence.
No Impact – Instability Doesn’t Spillover

INSTABILITY DOESN’T SPILLOVER – SELF-INTEREST KEEPS THE PEACE
CDDRL 06 (March, Center for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law, Participants include Jamal Benomar of the United
Nations, Ambassador Barbara Bodine of Harvard University, Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, and
Deborah Gordon of the Center for International Security and Cooperation.)
Some participants proposed reasons why Iran

might have a vested interest in a stable Iraq. Iran
benefits from pilgrimage trade, holy site tourism, and business interests in Iraq.
Iranian courts and seminaries are filled with Iraqis, who lobby and mentor members
of the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, the Iranian leadership fears the impact of an
independent Kurdistan on Iranian Kurds and are similarly scared of the Arab
nationalism in the Khuzistan province. But other participants questioned if Iran would want to be seriously
involved in stabilizing Iraq and what role the Hawza (the Iraqi Shi’a clerical leadership) might play, especially under the quietist
tradition.
CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ WON’T ESCALATE AND SPILL OVER; THE GOVERNMENT
WILL BE ABLE TO CONTAIN IT
Though U.S. troops are all but gone, the

Iraqi army still depends on U.S. arms and support. At the
same time, the army acts increasingly as an instrument of Shia political dominance,
thereby extending Shia physical control and combating the growing Sunni
insurgency supported by al Qaeda and Sunni governments. The Shia in the south assert themselves
more, causing a country- wide conflict to spill out of Baghdad and the surrounding areas. The Kurds abandon any efforts at reining in
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which raises the odds on Turkish intervention.
! Inevitable – Reduced Dependence

U.S. WILL CUT OIL DEPENDENCE BY 75% BY 2025 – IMPACT INEVITABLE
BBC News 06 [2/1, “Q&A: US Dependence on foreign oil,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4669980.stm]
What does President Bush want? In a nutshell, he wants the US to cut the amount of oil it imports
from the Middle East by 75% by 2025. As the world's dominant economic power, the
US is also the world's biggest consumer of oil. Although the US is an oil producer
itself, it relies heavily on crude imports from elsewhere in the world to fuel its cars,
homes and factories. Why does the US want to cut its reliance on Middle Eastern oil?
Washington is concerned about the stability of oil supplies from the region. "We have a serious problem. America is addicted
to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world," President Bush said in his State
of the Union address. Although the world's biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, remains a
staunch ally of the US, analysts fear political unrest or a terrorist attack on Saudi oil
facilities could hit supplies to the West. The American-led war in Iraq has increased
discontent among many in the Arab world at US foreign policy. Attacks by insurgents
continue to damage Iraq's oil infrastructure, and the general instability has helped to
fuel recent record oil prices.
No Impact – Iran Won’t Invade

IRAN HAS A VESTED INTREST IN A STABLE IRAQ: IF IRAQ DESCENDED INTO
CHAOS THEY WOULDN’T INVADE
Given the contained nature of Iraq’s chaotic conflict, it is in Iran’s interest to avoid a
formal military presence there. Iran may become more involved if Shia political control is threatened in Iraq or if
Turkey intervenes in the north. Otherwise, Iran is already the status quo power, so destabilizing Iraq
any further, or spreading the conflict to Saudi Arabia, is not in Iran’s interest.
Further, as Iran pursues its nuclear program, it seeks to avoid more regional or
international attention. Iranian military capacity is questionable. It still uses U.S.
weapons systems more than 30 years after the fall of the Shah; therefore, we cannot
presume the Iranian army is ready to enter Iraq. It has been a fiasco for the Americans, and the Iranians
do not want to repeat the Americans’ mistakes. In recent history, furthermore, Iran has not come close to
invading a neighbor since the Taliban kidnapped Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan.
However, Iran does have experience supplying weapons to factions in neighboring states, as with the Northern Alliance in its fight with
the Taliban.
AT: Surge Means No !

STABILITY INCREASING BUT ON THE BRINK – FOREIGN INVESTORS AND
ECONOMIC BOOM
Reuter and Zand 7/22 [Wolfgang and Bernhard, 2008, “Relative Stability Brings Opportunities for Foreign Investors,” Spiegel
Online International, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,567268,00.html]
Iraq simply does not have the resources to rebuild on its own, and this has prompted
the government to woo foreign companies and investors along with engineers, petroleum industry
experts and doctors, like Haddad. Slowly but surely, European and American companies are beginning to trust the
incipient peace, although it is often shattered by bombings, like the one last Tuesday that left 33
people dead near Baghdad. Such attacks are a poignant reminder that the country is still
teetering on the brink of disaster and that stability and security remain relative terms
in Iraq. Nevertheless, there have been tangible changes for the better. Iraqis are
drawing hope primarily from the economic boom that has spread across the country.
IRAQ IS ON THE BRINK: STABILIZING NOW BUT PROGRESS COULD BE EASILY
REVERSED
The Baltimore Sun 6/24 [David Wood, 2008, “Violence Figures Decline in Iraq; Army Growing, More Civilians Taking Part in
Security Organizations, Pentagon Reports,” Lexis]
violence is down by as much as 80 percent

In a new report on the Iraq war, the Pentagon said yesterday that
from January last year, but the improved security gains remain "fragile, reversible
and uneven." More than 100,000 armed Iraqi civilians are taking part in U.S.-financed local security organizations, and the
Iraqi army and police continue to grow in numbers and capability, with almost 500,000 trained personnel, the report said. But Iran has
stepped up "large-scale" shipments of weapons, ammunition, explosives and trained fighters into Iraq, according to the Pentagon. It
directly accused "the government of Iran" of continuing to "fund, train, arm and guide numerous networks that conduct wide-scale
insurgency operations" inside Iraq. Attacks using a deadly form of Iranian-made bomb called an Explosively Formed Penetrator, which
can punch through heavy armor, reached their highest levels on record in April, the report said, without providing numbers. The report,
a quarterly assessment, also acknowledged that Iraqi security forces are not nearly ready to take over operations from U.S. troops, a
judgment that might count heavily as U.S. commanders and the administration ponder further troop reductions.
IRAQ STABILITY INCREASING BUT ON THE BRINK – SECURITY FORCES

O’Hanlon and Pollack 6/13 (Michael, Kenneth, 2008, “Iraq: One Year Later”, Michaels O’Hanlon is a Senior fellow and
Foreign Policy expert at the Brookings Institute. Kenneth Pollack is the Director of Research for the Saban Center for Middle East Policy
at the Brookings Institute, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2008/0613_iraq/0613_iraq.pdf)
This has been the spring of the beginning of the blossoming of the Iraq security
forces. There's been a big, big breakthrough in the last three months. Now, when one makes
this sort of an observation, ofcourse, in the American debate, it's immediately necessary to make all the caveats that go along with that.
This has been a very impressive trajectory. It does not mean we are near any kind of
a stable end point. I do not think that we have all of a sudden seen the Iraqis fully
emerge as a viable security force that no longer requires American help, that can handle its own
security problems on its own, and that is bound to stick together cohesively no matter
what. That's not what I'm saying, and I don't think Ken will either.
AT: Civil War Will Be Contained

CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTAIN BY A FOREIGN ACTOR
– EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE PROVES
CDDRL 06 (March, Center for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law, Participants include Jamal Benomar of the United
Nations, Ambassador Barbara Bodine of Harvard University, Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institue of Near East Policy, and
Deborah Gordon of the Center for International Security and Cooperation.)
Have a clear and coordinated policy about what to do politically and militarily in the event of a full-scale civil war, for example, which
factions and leaders the U.S. should back, or how it should deploy its force. Share this discreetly with allies to build consensus. Use a
system of indicators, which already exist, and prepare contingency plans in the case of escalating violence. One participant noted that
historically, no foreign force has ever been able to stop a civil war by military means
once it has broken out; from this perspective, the most a foreign force can do is to
expedite its conclusion by supporting one side.
AT: Iraq Not Dependent on U.S. Market

IRAQ’S ECONOMY IS DEPENDENT ON U.S. CONSUMPTION
CIA 6/24 (2008, CIA for the World Fact Book on Iraq. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/iz.html)
Exports - commodities: crude oil 84%, crude materials excluding fuels 8%, food and live animals 5%
Exports - partners: US 40%, Italy 13.7%, Spain 5.6%, Canada 5.5%, France 4.7%, Netherlands 4.6% (2006)
AT: Iraq Will Run Out

IRAQ WON’T RUN OUT OF OIL ANYTIME SOON – THEY HAVE THE WORLD’S
SECOND LARGEST RESERVE OF OIL WITH LESS THAN HALF OF THEIR OIL
FIELDS IN PRODUCTION
Kumins 04 (Lawrence, 6/24, CRS Report for Congress, “Iraq Oil: Reserves, Production, and Potential Revenues. Lawrence Kumis
is a Specialist in Energy Policy in the Resources, Science, and Industry Division.)
With 112 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, Iraq has the world’s second-
largest endowment of oil, amounting to 11% of the global total. Only 17 of 80 oil fields have been
developed; the most significant are Kirkuk in the north and Rumaila in the south. There has been virtually no
exploration for many years, suggesting that Iraq may have much more oil than
currently estimated. Iraq also has significant proven natural gas reserves; virtually
all are undeveloped. As a point of reference, Saudi Arabia, at 260 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, has the largest
reserve base and can produce as much as 10.5 million barrels per day (mbd). Iraq’s most recent peak production was realized just before
its invasion of Kuwait. In July 1990, output reached 3.5 mbd, before exports were halted by an international boycott. Before the latest
war, Iraq’s production averaged 2.5 mbd. During 2004, output has varied between 1.9 and 2.4 mbd; exports have been as high as 1.6
mbd but average considerably less as security issues periodically disrupt the flow of crude to export terminals in Turkey and the Persian
Iraqi reserves, were they more intensively developed, could easily support much
Gulf.
greater production. Amounts three times greater than Iraq’s highest output —
rivaling Saudi Arabia’s production — could potentially be achieved with the
application of up-to date geological technology and substantial investment in field
development and infrastructure. The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that the cost of bringing oil
production on line in Iraq is among the world’s lowest, about $3-$5 billion per mbd of output.1 Such potential productivity suggests
that Iraq offers one of the world’s best long- term petroleum prospects, with substantial output from relatively few wells, which
currently suffer from deferred maintenance.
HALF OF IRAQ’S OIL FIELDS HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN EXPLORED-THE AMOUNT

OF OIL THERE IS COULD BE DRASTICALLY INCREASED WITH SUPERIOR
PROBING TECHNOLOGY
Luft 03 (Gal, May 12, “How Much Oil Does Iraq Have?” Gal Luft is the Co-Director for the Institue for the Analysis of Global Security at
the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookigns Institution. http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2003/0512globalenvironment_luft.aspx)
Iraq has considerable oil reserves and low production costs. Second, because of Iraq's
isolation over the last decade—during which exploration technology has greatly
improved—there has been almost no use of the most sophisticated exploration
techniques such as seismological surveys, magnetometers, and sniffers in Iraq.
Furthermore, most of the fields have not been explored down to the deepest layers of the
ground, where plenty of oil can be found. Out of the 74 fields that have been
discovered and evaluated, only 15 are actually operating. In addition, there are 526
prospective drilling sites in Iraq today, but just 125 of them have actually been
drilled. Of those, 90 have shown potential as oil fields, but only 30 have been even
partially developed. This means that once on the ground with sophisticated exploration tools, petrogeologists could establish
in relatively short time a far more accurate picture of the scope of Iraq's reserve than the one we have today.
AT: Speculation Fuels Prices

SPECULATION ISN’T RESPONSIBLE FOR HIGH PRICES
New Yorker 7/7 (2008, “Oily Speculations,” http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/07/07/080707ta_talk_surowiecki)
Given this history, and the fact that recent years have seen a huge flood of speculative
money entering the commodity markets—assets in commodity indexes, by some calculations, increased
twentyfold between 2003 and the spring of this year—it’s not unreasonable to wonder if there might be
something nefarious behind the sharp run-up in oil prices. But there’s little convincing
evidence that the oil market is being significantly manipulated. Whatever chicanery is
occurring—and we can assume there is some—has only a marginal effect on prices at the pump.
Congress is not, though, just attacking illegal market manipulation; it’s also taking aim at perfectly legal speculation, namely the buying
and selling of futures contracts, which are effectively bets that oil prices will go up (or down). Futures
contracts can be
used by oil sellers (like OPEC ) or oil buyers (like the airlines) to hedge their risks by agreeing to sell or buy
oil in the future at a set price. Speculators, by contrast, mostly use futures contracts to
gamble on oil prices, and have no interest in buying or selling real barrels of oil.
These gambles can be tremendously lucrative, but they don’t directly determine the
real (or “spot”) price of oil. That’s set by the people who are buying and selling actual
barrels of petroleum. Although speculators could directly distort oil prices by turning
their futures contracts into oil and then taking it off the market to drive up prices, a
look at oil inventories shows no sign that this is happening.
SPECULATION NO LONGER HAS AN IMPACT ON OIL PRICES
Wallace 6/27 [Ed, 2008, “Oil Prices are All Speculation,” Business Week, Ed Wallace holds a Gerald R. Loeb Award for business
journalism, bestowed by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. His column heads the Sunday Drive section of the Fort Worth Star-
Telegram, and he is a member of the American Historical Society,
http://www.businessweek.com/print/lifestyle/content/jun2008/bw20080626_022098.htm]
Today, while energy prices are crushing American families, I think we'd all benefit by reflecting on what happened with energy in 2001.
Seven years ago, Enron was fleecing California, extorting its people for electricity to the tune of billions of dollars. As is true today,
some voices in the Administration claimed that supply shortages, not manipulation,
formed the core of California's soaring electricity prices. Yet, now that we know the whole story of Enron's criminal
manipulations, many menbers of the media have forgotten how in 2001 the White House deflected any blame for California's suddenly
stratospheric electrical costs away from their Houston friends. Likewise, our
Energy Secretary has a real
problem discussing issues with facts. Like a broken record, he continues to maintain
that in no way has speculation had anything to do with today's high oil prices. No, to
hear Sam Bodman tell it, they are now and always have been caused by too many
buyers chasing too few barrels of oil. But, while that might have been true in 2004,
things have changed. And so I give you just one week of news from the oil market. To be more exact, it's the oil news from
the seven days preceding our Energy Secretary's comments about supply and demand.
AT: Iraq Pullout Destabilizes

NO IMPACT: EVEN WITH A PULLOUT, TERRORISTS WOULDN’T HAVE THE
RESOURCES TO DESTABILIZE – WE’RE UNIQUE
Benjamin 07 (Daniel, 7/31, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution, Testimony Before the Oversight and Investigations
Subcommittee of The House Armed Services Committee.
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/testimonies/2007/0731iraq_benjamin/20070731.pdf)
And if the United States withdraws from Iraq? A central argument of President Bush
and his Administration has been that a U.S. departure from Iraq could lead to a
jihadist takeover of the nation. I do not find this to be a credible scenario. First, as
we have seen in al-Anbar province, there is growing Sunni antipathy to al Qaeda,
and what has been true in the province that was most dominated by al Qaeda is likely to
be true in other provinces. Al Qaeda has grown considerably in Iraq, but it has failed
to mobilize the population behind it. A force that numbers in the few thousands will
never be able to take over the entire country. Even if all other Sunnis stood aside and
the Iraqi military were to dissolve, al Qaeda has nothing like the manpower to defeat
the Shia militias. The group has thus far shown itself incapable of holding territory
over a sustained period of time. While it doubtless will continue to be capable of
carrying out mass casualty attacks, much more is required to take Baghdad. In short,
jihadist Iraq is an extremely improbable outcome.
AT: Geopolitical Events Fuel Prices

GEOPOLITICAL UNCERTAINTY IS IRRELEVANT WHEN IT COMES TO OIL
BBC 5/28 (2008, Anthony Rueben, “Who Knows Why Oil Prices are So High?”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7255447.stm)
When the New York oil price broke through $100 a barrel for the first time at the start of 2008, one of the factors cited as being behind it
was the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan on 27 December 2007. "That
didn't strike us as making any
sense at the time," says Sean Cronin, editor of Argus Global Markets. He says that
people are too keen to attribute market moves to geopolitical factors
AT: Alt Cause – Conflict Over Revenue

NEW IRAQI CONSTITUTION GUARANTEES FAIR DISTRIBUTION
Blanchard 07 (10/2, Christopher M., CRS Report for Congress, "Iraq: Oil and Gas Legislation, Revenue Sharing, and U.S. Policy,
Christopher M. Blanchard is an Analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL34064.pdf)
The central role of the oil sector in Iraq’s economy, the uneven geographic
distribution of Iraq’s oil resources, and the legacy of communal favoritism practiced
under Saddam Hussein have created lasting concerns among Iraqis about the future
equitable distribution of oil revenues. These concerns have deepened in the
atmosphere of sectarian and ethnic violence that has gripped Iraq since mid-2003. The
principles and mechanisms by and through which Iraq’s oil revenues are to be collected and distributed remain contested. Nevertheless,
most outside observers agree that an equitable revenue distribution formula will be
critically important to Iraq’s future economic health and political stability. Article
112 of Iraq’s constitution requires the Iraqi government to distribute revenues: in a
fair manner in proportion to the population distribution in all parts of the country,
specifying an allotment for a specified period for the damaged regions which were
unjustly deprived of them by the former regime, and the regions that were damaged
afterwards in a way that ensures balanced development in different areas of the
country, and this shall be regulated by a law.
AT: Alt Cause – High Prices = Inflation

HIGH PRICES SEND MORE MONEY INTO THE ECONOMY, BOLSTERING THEM
INSTEAD OF DRAGGING THEM INTO INFLATION
Middle East Online 6/10 (2008, “Gulf Inflation Threat Mounts as Oil Hurdles to $150”, http://www.middle-east-
online.com/English/?id=26366)
Prices will rise by an average of 9 percent in most Gulf states this year as rents and
global commodity prices surge, a Reuters poll showed last month. But high oil prices
cannot alone be blamed for inflation, analysts said. Other global oil producers, including Canada
and Norway, have low inflation rates largely because their currencies have strengthened
against the dollar, which is down almost 20 percent against the euro since the
beginning of 2007. "Increasing oil prices encourage governments to spend more
money given the capacity constraints in the region," said Paul Gamble, head of research at Saudi-based
investment firm Jadwa Investment. "That should push the exchange rate up and dampen the
impact of inflation."
HIGH OIL PRICES AREN’T THE CAUSE OF INFLATION

Fleckenstein 5/12 (2008, Bill Fleckenstein is Presidant of Fleckenstein Capital which manages a hedge fund and is an expiernced
economic columnist. MSN Money, “Why All Roads Lead to Inflation”
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/ContrarianChronicles/WhyAllRoadsLeadToInflation.aspx)
Regular readers know my motto (which is on the masthead of my Web site): "In a social democracy with a fiat currency, all roads lead to
inflation." Over the past couple of decades, through all the occasional chatter about deflation, I have resolutely maintained that deflation
would not be the outcome we would see because the Fed would do what the Fed has done. One
major force helped hold
inflation at bay during the 1990s: globalization. As Jim Grant points out in a brilliant essay titled "The Close
of the Era of Peace and Quiet" in the current Grant's Interest Rate Observer (subscription required): "Between the early 1980s and the
late 1990s, an estimated 2 billion new pairs of hands had joined the global labor force.
Employers never had it so good, especially so in countries like the United States, where relocation to
low-cost meccas of the East was no idle threat, but an actionable business plan."
Cheap labor, when combined with the technological advances of the late 1990s -- which
were powerful, though no more potent than those we'd seen in the 1920s and 1960s, for instance -- helped offset the
Federal Reserve's money printing. However, in the wake of the stock bubble, that
money printing set off the U.S. housing boom and began to cause different
consequences. In addition, because so many countries see their currencies as linked to
ours, the Fed's money printing has led to global money printing, which continues to
this day. And, in the wake of the mortgage debacle, we have once again chosen to
flood the system with easy credit. That has forced parts of the world in the late stages
of an economic boom, with already-high inflation rates (such as the Middle East and
some Asian countries), to follow our ill-advised and shortsighted policies. Exacerbating those
inflation trends is the synchronized economic boom that the world has enjoyed for the
past couple of decades, which is a major focus of Marc Faber, the editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report (subscription
required). Combining Grant's and Faber's views, we see that the first decade of the global economic boom
and the attendant expansion in the labor force held inflation in check. Now those
laborers all over the world want more money, and economic expansion in countries
everywhere is creating a tremendous drain on the world's resources, leading to higher
commodity prices (exacerbated by more money printing). That, ladies and gentlemen, is a
recipe for accelerating inflation. And that is not going away anytime soon.
AT: Budget Protects Econ

NEW IRAQI BUDGET DOESN’T TAKE LOW PRICES INTO ACCOUNT
International Herald Tribune 7/3 (2008, “Iraq raises budget targets to repair infrastructure thanks to oil prices”,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/02/business/02budget.php)
Iraq's Finance Ministry wants to raise its 2008 budget by 44 percent to a record $70
billion, cashing in on record oil prices to rebuild shattered infrastructure, the government's
spokesman said on Wednesday. The ministry's submission of a supplementary budget of $21
billion - on top of February's 2008 budget of $48 billion - comes as prices for Iraq's
main export oil hits record highs. "This enhanced budget that results from the
stability in Iraq's oil exports ... will have tangible positive effects on the provision of
basic services in the country," said a government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh.
IRAQ WILL SOON HAVE TO PAY ITS OWN EXPENSES – HIGH OIL PRICES KEY
TO ECON
The Associated Press 3/11 (2008, “Iraq Oil Revenue Soars, Creating Huge Surplus.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23578542/)
Iraq is not spending much of its own money, despite soaring oil revenues that are
pushing the country toward a massive budget surplus, U.S. auditors told Congress on Tuesday. The
expected surplus comes as the U.S. continues to invest billions of dollars in rebuilding
Iraq and faces a financial squeeze domestically because of record oil prices. "The Iraqis
have a budget surplus," said U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. "We have a huge budget deficit. ... One of the questions is who
should be paying." Walker and the other auditors did not give a figure for the likely surplus. U.S. officials contend that Iraq's lack of
spending is due primarily to Baghdad's inability to determine where its money is needed most and how to allocate it efficiently. Two
senators have called for an investigation into the matter. Democrats say the assessment is proof that the Iraq war as a waste of time and
money. The U.S. has spent more than $45 billion on rebuilding Iraq. And while officials
in Iraq contend that much progress is being made, many projects remain unfinished
and U.S. troops are still needed to provide security. "They ought to be able to use
some of their oil to pay for their own costs and not keep sending the bill to the United
States," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat. In recent months, Iraq experienced its highest oil
production and export levels since the war began five years ago, said Stuart Bowen, special
inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. That spike in revenue combined with the highest oil prices
in history, "coalesce into an enormous revenue windfall for the Iraqi government,"
Bowen told the Senate Appropriations Committee. Whereas Iraqi officials estimated $35 billion in oil revenues last fall, Bowen said the
final number is likely to be closer to $60 billion. "That
certainly gives them resources to carry forward
with an extensive reconstruction plan," Bowen said.

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Z Juniors 2008 – AMP!

Iran Scenario – Dominance [Nuclear War] [1 of 2]...................................................................21

Middle Eastern War = Extinction..............................................................................................37

Turn – Saudi Arabian Oil Revenues = Insurgency.....................................................................54

AT: Alt Cause – High Prices = Inflation.....................................................................................70

2. INVESTMENT IN ALTERNATIVE ENERGY LOWERS OIL PRICES

4. INTERNAL LINK: HIGH PRICES KEY TO STABILITY – PRESSURES COUNTRIES

As we have already said, the

Probability: THE ESCALATION OF A MIDDLE EAST WAR FROM IRAQ IS THE

AND THE IMPACT IS MORE PROBABLE

What keeps it in play, however, are several powerful forces. Terrorist

Impact Calculus – Global Warming Specific

Link Wall – Iraqi Stability

HIGH PRICES KEY TO MAINTAIN STABILITY

After the experience of the last thirty years we

Terror Scenario – Nuclear

After the experience of the last thirty years we

Global Econ Scenario

After the experience of the last thirty years we

U.S.-Iran War Scenario [1 of 2]

U.S.-Iran War Scenario [2 of 2]

Iran Scenario – Dominance [Nuclear War] [1 of 2]

Iranian Dominance Scenario [2 of 2]

Iran Scenario – Instability [Nuclear Terrorism]

After the experience of the last thirty years we

Instability in Iran. Finally, there

Saudi Arabia Scenarios [1 of 4]

After the experience of the last thirty years we

Saudi Arabia Scenarios [2 of 4]

Saudi Arabia ! – Global Econ [3 of 4]

Saudi Arabia ! – Global Stability [4 of 4]

Meanwhile, the existenceof an arsenal of mass destruction in such an unstable region in

AT: U.S. Saves Global Econ – Saudi Arabia Influence

Saudi Arabia commands a pivotal position in the global economy. As

STABILITY INCREASING – U.S. MILITARY SURGE, ECONOMIC GROWTH,

STABILITY INCREASING NOW – MITIGATED TERROR, STABILIZED ECON, OIL

Iraq Instability = Iran Instability

Iraq Civil War Escalates – Destabilizes Region

Instability = Iran Dominance

Iraq Instability = Saudi Instability

A SPILLOVER FROM AN IRAQI CIVIL WAR WOULD DESTABILIZE SAUDI

Middle Eastern War Escalates

Middle Eastern War = Extinction

Escalation Bad – Terror [1 of 2]

Escalation Bad – Terror [2 of 2]

Escalation Bad [Passion Inflammation] [1 of 2]

Escalation Bad [Passion Inflammation] [2 of 2]

Escalation Bad – Refugee Flow = Iran Dominance

Escalation Bad – Refugees [1 of 2]

Escalation Bad – Laundry List [1 of 2]

Escalation Bad – Laundry List 2

Global Warming = Middle East Tension [1 of 3]

Global Warming = Middle East Tension [2 of 3]

Global Warming = Middle East Tension [3 of 3]

Uniqueness Overwhelms the Link

Turn – Oil Consumption = Terror

Turn – High Oil Prices = Terror

Turn – Saudi Arabian Oil Revenues = Insurgency

Turn – Iran Destabilizes Iraq [1 of 2]

No Link – Oil Prices Will Stay High

No Impact – Insurgency Fails

No Impact – Instability Doesn’t Spillover

Some participants proposed reasons why Iran