Youssef M. Ibrahim, Expert on Energy and the Middle East
He is group editor at Energy Intelligence, a company that publishes news and provides data and analysis about international energy issues. Ibrahim is also a senior fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Ibrahim was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, and Tehran Bureau Chief. He also covered energy for The Wall Street Journal.
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DATE March 21, 2003 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A⨠TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A⨠NETWORK NPR⨠PROGRAM Fresh Airâ¨â¨Interview: Youssef Ibrahim of Energy Intelligence discusses theâ¨possible ramifications of the Iraq war on oil production in theâ¨Middle Eastâ¨TERRY GROSS, host:â¨â¨This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.â¨â¨One of the slogans of the anti-war movement is No Blood For Oil. Today we'reâ¨going to examine the assumption that war will profit the oil industry andâ¨consider what the industry has to gain and lose. My guest, Youssef Ibrahim,â¨is the group editor of Energy Intelligence, which provides information andâ¨analysis to the international oil and gas industry, and publishes Petroleumâ¨Intelligence Weekly and Oil Daily. Ibrahim is a former Middle East editor forâ¨The New York Times--he covered the first Gulf War for The Times--and he'sâ¨former energy editor of The Wall Street Journal. He was recently a seniorâ¨fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Before joining the council, heâ¨worked for the oil company BP Amoco, managing government and media relationsâ¨in the US and the Middle East.â¨â¨Earlier today, I asked Ibrahim how the oil industry is reacting to the slogan,â¨No Blood For Oil.â¨â¨Mr. YOUSSEF IBRAHIM (Group Editor, Energy Intelligence): Uncomfortably.â¨They don't like to be associated with wars to begin with, and they alreadyâ¨have a bad image, and there are quite a few people around the world who haveâ¨argued that we are waging this war to get Iraqi oil, so the oil industry, Iâ¨think, is keeping a very low profile at the moment, but there is no questionâ¨that oil companies from all over the world are circling around Iraq to seeâ¨what's in it for them once this conflict is over.â¨â¨GROSS: Well, potentially, what is in it for the oil industry once theâ¨conflict is over?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, the numbers speak for themselves. Iraq has theâ¨second-largest oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia and, in fact,â¨this region, the Persian Gulf region, where we are going to war at the momentâ¨contains two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves. Saudi Arabia hasâ¨something like 500 billion barrels of oil sitting under it. Iraq probably isâ¨close to that, so we are talking about an awful lot of oil here.â¨â¨GROSS: Do Western oil companies expect to get access to Iraqi oil?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: I think they're counting on it, as a matter of fact. Over theâ¨past 12 years, the Iraqi regime, which is about to tumble, has tried to signâ¨contracts to entice, has conducted talks and has remained in touch with oilâ¨companies from France, Russia and China. Now it was permitted under theâ¨United Nations sanction system to speak, discuss, even negotiate with theseâ¨companies, but none of the contracts could be executed until the sanctionsâ¨were lifted; hence, all this argument about the French opposition to the warâ¨being motivated by the French contracts that were signed with Iraq. There mayâ¨be something to that.â¨â¨The other side of this coin, of course, is that now we want the Americanâ¨companies to have all this Iraqi oil, and the third component in that story,â¨which is evolving, is how do the Iraqis feel about it?â¨â¨GROSS: How do the Iraqis feel about it?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: I suspect that the Iraqis, no matter who governs Iraq in theâ¨end of the day, the simple-minded idea that we're going to put a servile orâ¨subservient government in there and turn Iraq into a private American gasolineâ¨pumping station is just not going to work out, because it's very simpleâ¨really. Oil is the single national resource of Iraq. No matter who runsâ¨Iraq, they have absolutely no interest in pumping oil out of control, bringingâ¨the price down to $5, $6, $7 or $10 a barrel. That does not serve theirâ¨interest, and anybody who does this eventually will be overthrown until weâ¨reach a government that, in the end, like all governments that produce oil,â¨will join OPEC; re-join OPEC in the case of Iraq, of course.â¨â¨GROSS: President Bush has promised that the oil of Iraq will belong to theâ¨Iraqi people when this war is over. The Bush administration also expects thatâ¨Iraqi oil will pay for the reconstruction that is necessary of Iraq after theâ¨war. What is your understanding of the plan that the president has laid outâ¨for Iraqi oil?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, that is not what the president, or at least his mainâ¨policy-makers were saying in the beginning. As you recall, people, like theâ¨hard-liners in the Defense Department, including the Defense minister--orâ¨Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, who's his number two, and,â¨particularly, Richard Perle, who's of the Defense Board, and the conservativeâ¨think tanks in Washington--American Heritage Foundation and the Americanâ¨Enterprise Institute--were openly speaking about seizing Iraqi oil fields andâ¨operating them.â¨â¨After a while, when that kind of talk resonated very, very poorly with otherâ¨countries, not only the countries that were negotiating with Iraq over oil butâ¨other countries that had oil in the region, I think directives went out fromâ¨the White House to say, `Stop talking this way,' and the spinning went inâ¨another direction. Now the spinning is that the oil of Iraq belongs to theâ¨people of Iraq but, of course, we are planning to put a kind of puppet Iraqiâ¨government in there, and then hopefully we'll ask them to do what we want.â¨â¨Basically, I don't think this is going to work, for a number of reasons. One,â¨the most important reason, really, is the condition of the Iraqi oil industryâ¨at the moment can only be described as lamentable. It is running on empty, soâ¨to speak. The system has been deprived of spare parts for 12 years because ofâ¨the sanctions, and it is a miracle that the Iraqi engineers have made it work,â¨pumping as much as they can, which is about two million barrels a day. At theâ¨moment, of course, there is no oil coming out of Iraq at all, and we stillâ¨have to see how much damage this war will do to the oil fields, in addition toâ¨the damage that was done to the oil fields by their misuse over the past 12â¨years.â¨â¨GROSS: I need to ask you here, you sound very cynical about both the oilâ¨industry and the Bush administration's oil agenda in Iraq, but you edit energyâ¨publications, and the readers of these publications are primarily, I'dâ¨imagine, people in the oil industry, and it sounds like a disconnect to meâ¨that you would be so skeptical, yet be writing to an oil industry audience.â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, much of my information comes from the oil companies andâ¨the administration and oil policy-making think tanks, plus, of course, oil andâ¨politics are never separated. But there is really no contradiction. What I'mâ¨saying to you is the following. Oil companies do not like to see low oilâ¨prices, and oil-producing countries do not like to see low oil prices so, inâ¨fact, they have a shared interest there. I'm not saying that Iraq will notâ¨pump oil; Iraq will pump oil. What I'm saying is that Iraq, Iran, Saudiâ¨Arabia, Russia, or even Norway are never going to flood the world oil marketsâ¨with oil so as to bring the price down. That is not in their interest.â¨â¨And on the political side, I'm saying no sovereign nation takes orders fromâ¨another nation when it comes to its single national oil resource. So we needâ¨the oil, the world needs the oil, and the question is, how to we set the priceâ¨of that oil? And what sets the price of oil is demand and supply, which is anâ¨exercise that has a fair dimension of politics in it.â¨â¨So, basically, even after Iraq becomes a friendly country, it is not going toâ¨raise its production from two million to six million barrels a day, forâ¨example, to begin with, because that will take years and years and billions ofâ¨dollars to do, but also because it will continue to cooperate with OPECâ¨members, of which it is a founding member, as a matter of fact.â¨â¨There are really no contradictions between what the oil industry wants andâ¨what oil-producing countries want. There may be a contradiction between whatâ¨the Bush administration hopes for and what these two other parties hope for.â¨â¨GROSS: Where would you see that contradiction?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Price, where the price of oil is going to be. We consume soâ¨much oil every day. I mean, we guzzle up 20 million barrels of oil per day inâ¨this country and, of this, we are importing almost half from outside. Ourâ¨appetite for oil is seemingly uncontrollable. You know the argument about theâ¨SUV, etc., etc., and, therefore, it has been a policy of the United States forâ¨over 60 years to have a dimension of strategic and logistical control over theâ¨Middle East and the Persian Gulf region, which is the area that has theâ¨cheapest and the largest amount of oil. That has been our policy since thatâ¨memorable meeting between King Saud the great and President Roosevelt, if youâ¨recall. And ever since then, whenever somebody, particularly the ex-Sovietâ¨Union, threatened our interests in this region, we moved in to secure them.â¨â¨I think there is a little bit of this thinking that's still out there. Whenâ¨we saw that the French and the Russians were being encouraged by this Iraqiâ¨regime, that is about to fall, to set foot in this region and to have a shareâ¨of one of the biggest producers, Iraq, I have to be naive not to believe thatâ¨this was an element that has pushed us to decide on this campaign.â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is Youssef Ibrahim, group editor of Energy Intelligence,â¨which publishes information and analysis for the oil industry. We'll talkâ¨more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Youssef Ibrahim, and he's theâ¨group editor of Energy Intelligence, which is a group of energy-relatedâ¨publications. He's the former Middle East correspondent for The New Yorkâ¨Times, former energy editor of The Wall Street Journal.â¨â¨The Bush administration, you know, has said that the Iraqi oil will be for theâ¨Iraqi people, and Iraqi oil will pay for the reconstruction that is necessaryâ¨after the war. What do you think the Iraqi people will be looking for inâ¨terms of how the oil of their country is used and controlled after the fall ofâ¨Saddam Hussein?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, that's a very big bill, you know. Already the damageâ¨that has been done to Iraq by the sanctions--the 12-year-old sanctions--is soâ¨vast, it's not clear that Iraq's oil production in and of itself is enough toâ¨pay the bill for the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq will need massive amountsâ¨of help in every area in order to reconstruct itself, you know. Itsâ¨infrastructure is destroyed, its water pipeline system is destroyed, itsâ¨health system is destroyed, its hospital system is destroyed, and yesterday weâ¨bombed the Ministry of Planning. All the ministries and the variousâ¨administrative organs of the state are destroyed now.â¨â¨Reconstruction on that scale is something that the United Nations hasâ¨estimated will demand an amount of money between $100 billion and $150â¨billion. Iraq cannot earn that kind of money by pumping the oil it is nowâ¨pumping. It is producing about two million barrels a day, and that's nothingâ¨close to what it needs. So, yes, in principle the oil of Iraq will be used toâ¨reconstruct Iraq and, of course it does belong to the people of Iraq but, inâ¨addition to this, the international community will need to go in there andâ¨create, in effect, a marshal-like plan to repair the immense damage that hasâ¨been inflicted on Iraq in the previous war, 12 years of sanctions, and in thisâ¨war.â¨â¨GROSS: Do you think how the United States handles itself in terms of Iraqiâ¨oil will set the tone, in a way, for how the other countries of the regionâ¨regard America?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Absolutely. We cannot go around insinuating the French areâ¨acting out of greed and that they are opposing our war in Iraq because theyâ¨have their eye on Iraqi oil and then go in there and take over Iraqi oil,â¨clearly. And there has been, in fact, some discussion of this subject in theâ¨upper reaches of the White House. It is my understanding that some monthsâ¨ago, Vice President Dick Cheney, who is really running our energy policyâ¨completely, has invited the CEOs of a number of oil companies and the CEOs ofâ¨a number of oil service companies, such as Halliburton, which he used to run,â¨and asked them how they feel about going into Iraq immediately after the war,â¨and starting to work there and to repair it. And I don't think he got aâ¨satisfactory answer because these companies were a little wary aboutâ¨committing their shareholders' money into a country like Iraq, which is farâ¨from stable and, furthermore, of course, they were quite concerned aboutâ¨putting in their own expatriate employees in there until Iraq is secure andâ¨safe.â¨â¨Now we are just in the beginning of this war, and I'm absolutely sure theâ¨military campaign, in itself, will be a success. However, what one is notâ¨sure about is what happens after the war is over, and we have 100,000 Americanâ¨troops occupying and ruling 22 million or 23 million Iraqis. We are not soâ¨sure if there's not going to be a civil war in Iraq between the various tribalâ¨groups and the various ethnic groups, and whether the place is going indeed toâ¨be stable. I suspect we are going to have a succession of governments beforeâ¨we settle on a final government, and I suspect the final government will beâ¨probably from the military and probably just another Saddam Hussein, exceptâ¨he'll be our Saddam Hussein.â¨â¨This will take time, and during this time, I doubt that any business or anyâ¨companies would want to really go in there until they are sure the safety ofâ¨their people is guaranteed, and if they make a contract with the government,â¨that government is going to be in power in order to honor that contract.â¨â¨GROSS: You know, in response to people who are, like, skeptical of Dickâ¨Cheney and feel like he has special interests in this war, oil-relatedâ¨interests because of Halliburton, if he was being motivated by specialâ¨interest in his former company, why would he have called a meeting with theâ¨representatives of many oil companies to talk with them before the war?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, I think he's not only--I mean, we must not reduce the manâ¨to simply somebody who is looking after the interests of the oil industry.â¨He's also an ideologue, and somebody who buys into the Paul Wolfowitz theoryâ¨that America must impose its values on the rest of the world and, above all,â¨that American business should dominate. Now he did call the oil companies toâ¨ask them, `When we go in there, we want you guys to come in and just startâ¨working immediately.' I think he did keep in mind the traditional dominance weâ¨have had of that Middle East oil lake, huge sea of oil, and that it wasâ¨important, as Iraq is coming up in the world now, as a country free of Saddamâ¨Hussein, that we include it in our stable of oil countries. After all, weâ¨have Saudi Arabia, we have Kuwait, we have the United Arab Emirates, we haveâ¨Qatar, we have Oman and we want to make sure we also have the big, big fish,â¨Iraq.â¨â¨GROSS: Now are you advising the oil industry in your publications about howâ¨much stability to expect in Iraq in the near future? Are they relying on youâ¨for advice on that?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, our energy publications are, of course, read by not onlyâ¨the oil companies but also governments, etc., etc. Our job is journalistic,â¨pure and simple. We tell them what we see, we tell them what we expect, weâ¨give them news analysis and we give them political analysis, and what I'mâ¨telling you is basically what we are writing in our publications. It isâ¨something that they read and it's something that they also seek separatelyâ¨through their own intelligence. At the same time, we do get a lot of ourâ¨information from them as well, so you can think of this as a lot of eyesâ¨looking with a microscope at that area and that situation and at thisâ¨evolution of this war. And, of course, all decisions that are made in thisâ¨region have to do with oil, and the stability of the region. This is a regionâ¨that is now going through truly an earthquake. Nothing will be the sameâ¨afterwards. We will look back, I think, in a few years and say that this wasâ¨a turning point in history.â¨â¨GROSS: Youssef Ibrahim is group editor of Energy Intelligence, whichâ¨publishes information and analysis for the oil and gas industry. He's aâ¨former foreign correspondent for The New York Times and former energy editorâ¨for The Wall Street Journal. He'll be back in the second half of the show.â¨I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with journalist Youssefâ¨Ibrahim. We're talking about Iraqi oil: what's to become of it, who standsâ¨to profit from it and how oil is shaping perceptions of the war. Ibrahim isâ¨group editor of Energy Intelligence, which publishes information andâ¨analysis for the energy industry. He's also a former foreign correspondentâ¨for The New York Times--he reported on the first Gulf War--and is formerâ¨energy editor of The Wall Street Journal.â¨â¨You've talked about how, you know, one of the issues right now is stability inâ¨a country that is a major source of oil. Do you think that OPEC countries,â¨other countries in the Gulf area, are also concerned about stability in Iraq?â¨And do you think that some of the governments of the area, no matter whatâ¨their public stand might be on this war with Iraq, may privately support itâ¨because, A, they don't like Saddam Hussein and, B, it would bring moreâ¨stability to an important oil supplier?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, Terry, you're absolutely right about the second half ofâ¨that. Saddam Hussein, since 1990, has been a problem for this region. Hisâ¨policies have paralyzed this region completely economically and paralyzed itâ¨in terms of geopolitics. It has attracted the attention of the United Statesâ¨to it in a way that is not appealing to most of these countries. Also, Iraqâ¨is an oil-producing country, and all the countries around it--Iran, Saudiâ¨Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Amman--are also oil-producingâ¨countries. They need a government next door that, A, stops making war againstâ¨everybody; that, B, is not under armed attack all the time, as Iraq has been;â¨and, C, that has a steady oil policy with which they can work, so that theyâ¨coordinate their policies together.â¨â¨I am absolutely certain no one in the region would like Saddam to stay, andâ¨everybody is looking forward to his imminent departure. Now having said that,â¨it does not mean that everybody is awaiting the Americans with open armsâ¨because everybody is very wary about the American style of thisâ¨administration, which is very aggressive, very unilateralist and veryâ¨demanding. And they don't necessarily agree with the policies that the Bushâ¨administration has announced, for example, on oil, on Israel, on regionalâ¨stability in the area. And particularly they certainly don't like the notionâ¨of regime changes because if Iraq number one and then Iran is number two andâ¨Damascus is number three, everybody's going to start asking themselves, `Who'sâ¨next?' So there is a mixture of relief that Saddam will be going and, also,â¨apprehension that an unpredictable American force is coming.â¨â¨GROSS: Do you have any inside information about Arab governments that areâ¨actually supporting the Bush administration behind the scenes but publiclyâ¨opposing it?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Terry, every single Arab government is supporting and not onlyâ¨supporting, but giving all kinds of facilities to the American militaryâ¨operation. Those who are saying it and doing it publicly are only two Arabâ¨countries: Qatar, which has offered itself as the center for the command, andâ¨there's where General Tommy Franks lives or operates out of; and Kuwait,â¨which, of course, has all the land troops attacking Iraq moving out of there.â¨The only country that has refused to allow land troops is Turkey and, ofâ¨course, Saudi Arabia, but they are both allowing American airplanes to useâ¨their airspace and to use their air bases. Egypt is the same thing; publiclyâ¨it is not saying anything because there's so much opposition in the Arabâ¨street and in the Muslim street against this war, but privately they areâ¨cooperating with the United States militarily.â¨â¨And the reason everybody's doing this is the United States has become aâ¨frightening country. I mean, this administration really keeps scores andâ¨threatens those who do not and will not cooperate with it. And I think all ofâ¨these regimes are quite dependent on either financial aid from the Unitedâ¨States of America or military protection from the United States of America.â¨So the regimes themselves, in order to sustain power, need this Americanâ¨umbrella, whether it is financial or military. Their people hate the Americanâ¨presence and, hence, you have this situation where privately they are helping,â¨but publicly they say nothing.â¨â¨GROSS: Do you think another reason why some of these countries are helpingâ¨privately and publicly saying nothing is that, like we discussed before, theyâ¨don't like Saddam Hussein and they want more stability in Iraq?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Oh, on that part, they're very vocal. I mean, every country hasâ¨said that Saddam should go. In fact, at some point, the Arab and the Turksâ¨and the Iranians have suggested that the best solution to this crisis is forâ¨Saddam to leave Iraq. But Saddam Hussein and his family have refused to leaveâ¨Iraq. So the fact that nobody in this region likes Saddam is a public affair.â¨The fact that they are cooperating with the United States to remove him isâ¨what they don't like to talk about too much.â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is Youssef Ibrahim, group editor of Energy Intelligence,â¨which publishes information and analysis for the oil industry. We'll talkâ¨more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Youssef Ibrahim. He's theâ¨group editor of Energy Intelligence, which publishes a group of energy-relatedâ¨publications. He's a former Middle East correspondent for The New York Times,â¨a former energy editor for The Wall Street Journal.â¨â¨How do you think the oil industry is reacting to the unpopularity of Americaâ¨right now?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, Terry, I think they are reacting with great apprehension,â¨not only for psychological reasons. This is costing money. Do you know, forâ¨example, that as we are speaking now, every oil company working in any Muslimâ¨country has asked all the dependents of their expatriates to leave. Thatâ¨costs a lot of money when you have three kids in school, say, in Jakarta or inâ¨Pakistan or in Riyadh or in Dubayy or in Abu Dhabi. And you have to removeâ¨them and bring them back, say, to England or to America. Now that costs eachâ¨of these companies a lot of money.â¨â¨They're also quite worried about the safety of their expatriates. As you haveâ¨been reading in the past few weeks, oil workers and Americans and Britishâ¨expatriates are being shot here and there. In Kuwait, two Americans were shotâ¨by Kuwaiti policemen. In Yemen two days ago, three days ago, two American--orâ¨a Canadian and an American oil engineers working for the Hunt Oil Companyâ¨were shot. So we are beginning to see a phenomenon. I know the manager ofâ¨one of the largest oil companies in the world in Saudi Arabia who now has aâ¨special security person who has to examine his car for 25 minutes everyâ¨morning before he turns the ignition because some bombs have been planted inâ¨some cars. About four or five British executives, for some reason, were shotâ¨and killed in Saudi Arabia.â¨â¨In other words, this is for real. And it also causes a lot of stress. Allâ¨these expatriates are living now alone away from their family. So what we areâ¨talking about here is a lot of readjustment.â¨â¨GROSS: Well, since things have gotten so dangerous for oil workers, are thereâ¨certain policies or positions that the oil industry is trying to lobby for inâ¨the United States?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: I would think that the oil industry, but not only the oilâ¨industry. I'm beginning to see--even before I joined Energy Intelligence, Iâ¨was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and I was beginningâ¨to see a lot of businesses becoming very interested in the way thisâ¨administration conducts its international policy. You're beginning to hearâ¨from the Morgan Stanleys, from the Merrill Lynches, from the JP Morgans, fromâ¨IBM, from somebody like George Soros, who's on television all the time, as youâ¨noticed, objecting to the policies of this administration because it isâ¨threatening his business. It is threatening his ability to conduct business,â¨which is global by nature.â¨â¨So I think, for the first time, we are seeing the business community taking aâ¨step away from a Republican administration. That is not usually, as you canâ¨imagine, Terry, the mode. I mean, we always assume that business and theâ¨Republican Party are very close to one another. I think a lot of bigâ¨businesses, now that we have become a global economy, are beginning to seeâ¨that their interests are not necessarily served by the policies, the veryâ¨aggressive unilateralist policies, of this administration, such as cancelingâ¨the Kyoto agreement, canceling all the disarmament agreements with theâ¨Russians. The upcoming confrontation with North Korea is upsetting all of theâ¨Asian businesses. Anybody who has--and Asia is big business. And, of course,â¨there is China, which is the giant consuming nation that is looming out there,â¨with whom everybody would like to do business and which is objecting to ourâ¨policies as well.â¨â¨So politics and oil and business are all coming together, but this time notâ¨necessarily in the usual ways we had assumed in the past; that they're allâ¨approve of a Republican administration.â¨â¨GROSS: You have spent most of your career as a journalist, but there was aâ¨period where you worked as the vice president of media for a big oil company,â¨and you managed relations with the United States and the Middle East. Did youâ¨learn things or did you see things any differently from the perspective ofâ¨working within the oil industry than you'd seen them as a journalist?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Yes. It's like when you're a journalist, you are looking atâ¨these gigantic oil companies as huge fortresses, and you're always trying toâ¨climb their walls or assault them or penetrate them or get to their secrets.â¨And you always assume that they have a lot of power. And it's a veryâ¨interesting transition to make.â¨â¨Albeit too briefly, I was a senior vice president of, indeed, a major oilâ¨company, but I did a lot of work with this company's business in the Middleâ¨East, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Iran and these places. And so once you'reâ¨inside the fortress, it is absolutely amazing to appreciate that everythingâ¨you suspected when you were a journalist is actually true: that they do haveâ¨an awful lot of power; that they do have considerable access to the people inâ¨power, be it Tony Blair, prime minister of England, or George Bush or Billâ¨Clinton or Putin. And the Russian oligarches, who run the Russian oilâ¨industry, can meet with the Russian president with one phone call. And that'sâ¨a lot of power. And, of course, you've got to consider that these big oilâ¨companies--that the budgets or the revenues of ExxonMobil alone is equivalentâ¨to perhaps half the revenue of all of Africa.â¨â¨So to put things in perspective, these are giant instruments of industry, butâ¨they're also, by their sheer weight, big political players. And they have bigâ¨interests. And the reason Washington, DC, is crawling--and I mean literallyâ¨crawling--with lobbyists who are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars is thatâ¨all these big companies, be they oil or other than oil, have significantâ¨interests that need to--and need the attention and the ear of the politicians:â¨the congressmen, the senators and above, all the White House.â¨â¨GROSS: Were you ever in the position of having to represent an oil companyâ¨policy that you thought was a very bad or dangerous or oppressive policy?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: I think that's when you quit. I said it was too brief, twoâ¨years.â¨â¨GROSS: Is that why you quit?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Let's say that journalistic ethics and corporate ethics do notâ¨really get along.â¨â¨GROSS: You grew up in Egypt. You went to American University in Cairo. Whatâ¨did `America' mean when you were a young man and going to the Americanâ¨University? What did it mean to you?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: A wonderful dream, nirvana, the place you want to get to. Iâ¨used to walk out of the American University in Cairo and walk over to the Johnâ¨F. Kennedy Library, which was right next door in the American Embassy, andâ¨read this newspaper called The New York Times that I was becoming familiarâ¨with. And there was this fellow called James Reston I liked to read a lot.â¨And, I don't know, by the time I was 20, I decided, `This is it. I'm going toâ¨be a journalist, and I'm actually going to work for The New York Times.'â¨â¨And some dreams come true. I actually came to this country and went toâ¨Columbia University and got out of Columbia and joined The Times as a copyboy,â¨which means your job, among other things, was to go get frankfurters acrossâ¨the street for the reporters at midnight. But you learn a lot and you moveâ¨up, and eventually I became a reporter and foreign correspondent for theâ¨paper.â¨â¨But you asked the question about America, and it's an important question, theâ¨question you asked, Terry, because the America that I came to, the people likeâ¨Brzezinski, Kissinger--here in New York, we have 40,000 Muslim taxi driversâ¨who are in America--is the kind of America that is changing now. I mean, whatâ¨appeals to all of us immigrants is--it's a country of immigrants, afterâ¨all--is the values America stands for: the complete separation of church andâ¨state; the total preservation of your civil rights; your absolute freedom ofâ¨expression, to say, to think what you want and to be free; and equalâ¨opportunity.â¨â¨I think this--I did vote for President Bush, and I now regret that decisionâ¨because I think this particular administration and John Ashcroft, our attorneyâ¨general, are using 9/11 to actually reverse a lot of the civil right gainsâ¨that we have made. And in the process, what they are doing is making America,â¨the America that everybody love, not so lovable.â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is Youssef Ibrahim, group editor of Energy Intelligence, whichâ¨publishes information and analysis for the oil industry. We'll talk moreâ¨after a break. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is Youssef Ibrahim, group editor of Energy Intelligence, whichâ¨publishes information and analysis for the oil and gas industry. He's aâ¨former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, former energy editor ofâ¨The Wall Street Journal, former senior fellow at the Council on Foreignâ¨Relations and a former oil company vice president.â¨â¨Next week you'll be leaving for Iran.â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: And Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.â¨â¨GROSS: Mm-hmm. From what perspective will you be covering the war?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, some of it is sentimental. I've never missed a Gulf Warâ¨as a correspondent. I covered the first Iraq-Iran War, and I covered theâ¨Beirut civil war, and I covered the Marines over there, and I covered theâ¨second Gulf War. And I don't want to miss this war. I mean, I want to beâ¨there when it happens. But, objectively speaking, this is a historicalâ¨moment, as I said. We will look back at it and say history was made, andâ¨nothing after will be as things were before. And you almost have anâ¨obligation as a journalist, as an observer of the region, as a commentator, asâ¨a political analyst, to be there, to be close to where it happens, to see whatâ¨is going to happen, to document it, hopefully even to write a book about it.â¨â¨GROSS: Why Iran and Saudi Arabia?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: I think Iran started everything. I started my career in Iran.â¨It was my first job as a foreign correspondent. I was dispatched by theâ¨then-executive editor of The New York Times, Abe Rosenthal, to Iran as a youngâ¨foreign correspondent six months before the Iranian revolution. It was aâ¨quiet spot. It was a place where they would put somebody they just want toâ¨look at. So I got lucky and I landed there, and it was the revolution of theâ¨last century, the second revolution. The first was the Bolshevik. The secondâ¨was the Iranian revolution. And it was a genuine revolution. This is aâ¨revolution where five, six, seven million people were in the streets everyâ¨day, day after day, week after week, demanding a change of regime. And theâ¨army was shooting and killing 200, 300 people every night.â¨â¨And it changed. This was their first regime change, actually, we had in thisâ¨region, and the change was very significant. What Iran did is an ayatollah,â¨religious man, came and said that it is OK, it is a religious duty in fact, toâ¨politically change the regime. He declared the regime to be against Islamâ¨and, hence, the whole concept of Islamic political fundamentalist was born inâ¨Iran; therefore, Iran is, was and continues to be a major force in shaping theâ¨politics of the region. After this, we saw, of course, the emergence of manyâ¨an Islamic political movements. We saw them in Israel--Hamas. We saw them inâ¨Lebanon--Hezbollah. We saw them as far away as in Pakistan and in Indonesia.â¨And in many ways, you can go back and say this was the work of Ayatollahâ¨Ruhollah Khomeini, who is the leader of the Iranian revolution; therefore,â¨Iran is very important.â¨â¨Saudi Arabia is very important because it is the place that has--it is theâ¨other pole of Islamic fundamentalism. It is the country that has remained aâ¨very close ally of the United States while, in the same time, sitting one ofâ¨the most conservative Islamic regimes in the world. In some ways, the Iranianâ¨Islamic regime is much more revolutionary, dynamic, encourages debate withinâ¨it. The Sunni Wahabi Islamic regime of Saudi Arabia discourages debateâ¨completely and discourages independent thinking and simply discouragesâ¨movement. It is very static.â¨â¨And, in many ways, we are dabbling, we are entering in this region to changeâ¨all this, to try and establish a separation of church and state. I think itâ¨is a historical development, a truly momentous challenge. And one would wantâ¨to be there to watch it.â¨â¨GROSS: You certainly have your criticisms of the American government now.â¨But what do you say when you're in the Gulf or you're in the Middle East andâ¨you're confronted with really outlandish conspiracy theories about the Unitedâ¨States?â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Well, what I say--I also have my criticisms of many of theseâ¨regimes were discussing. I mean, after all, the reason I left Egypt and cameâ¨here 30 years ago is that I wanted to live in a free country. I did not wantâ¨to have my phones tapped, which they were. I did not want to grow up in aâ¨place where there was no freedom of expression, where if--the dream I had wasâ¨to be a journalist. I wanted to work for a place where I could write what Iâ¨want. I think the fact that these countries are all run by dictatorships ofâ¨one kind or another, that they have confiscated the civil rights of theirâ¨citizens; that they have allowed education to slip by, so that people areâ¨graduating from schools without any decent education, and they cannot findâ¨jobs; that they have mismanaged their economies; that corruption is rampant isâ¨all very legitimate criticism.â¨â¨And there is a side of me, while I'm critical of the United States' war withâ¨Iraq, that says, `Hey, maybe this war is good. Maybe this war will just makeâ¨the whole area implode, and maybe it is time for this area to implode.'â¨Certainly it is time for reforms. And if governments would not implementâ¨these reforms themselves, then let their boiling streets, so to speak, forceâ¨it upon them.â¨â¨GROSS: Well, Youssef Ibrahim, I wish you safe travels, and I thank you veryâ¨much for talking with us.â¨â¨Mr. IBRAHIM: Thank you.â¨â¨GROSS: Youssef Ibrahim is group editor of Energy Intelligence, whichâ¨publishes information and analysis for the oil and gas industry. He's aâ¨former foreign correspondent for The New York Times and former energy editorâ¨for The Wall Street Journal.â¨â¨(Credits)â¨â¨GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.â¨â¨We'll close with a recording by pianist Marian McPartland, the host of NPR'sâ¨program Piano Jazz. She turned 85 today. We wish her a happy birthday.â¨â¨(Soundbite of McPartland performance)