If US withdrew from Iraq, would price of oil go up or down?

[kentuck]

Some would argue that it would disrupt the world market? Can it be much more disrupted than it is now? In my opinion, the price of oil would decline. Why? Because people do not usually destroy things that are in their own interest. They would find a way to protect the pipelines thru Basra. They would find a way to get rid of Maliki, if he didn't have American protection. America in Iraq is the primary cause of the high oil prices around the world. Another reason for us to withdraw from this occupation.

[jpak]

1. Down - Iraqi oil exports would increase - one way or another

There's Big Money in oil....and, by hook or by crook, lots Iraqi oil would hit the market...

[ThomWV]

2. Down - just the reduced military use would decrease world demand

You realize that our military uses half of the petroleum based fuel consumed by the United States and that its the Air Force that consumes most of it.

[NWHarkness]

3. Up

If we stay it will go up.
If we leave it will go up.
If there is war it will go up.
If there is peace it will go up.
If it rains it will go up.
If the sun shines it will go up.

It will always go up.

[mmonk]

4. Control of Iraq's oil and oil reserves is key.

We didn't want a sudden glut of cheap oil hitting the market. It's why we secured the oil fields and let Iraq itself go and why there was an oil component we interjected into Iraqi law as a "marker".

[Rosemary2205]

5. The price of oil is mostly tied to the dollar not really supply/demand

And I'm not seeing how pulling out of Iraq affects the value of the dollar OR the supply/demand of oil.

[mmonk]

6. It can effect supply.

Iraq has untapped oil reserves and Iraqi oil was off the market for quite awhile. Regulating that capacity is what the multi-national oil interests want.

[Rosemary2205]

7. I agree BUT

since that oil is not on the market, and won't be for some time while Iraq wrestles with itself, then I see Iraq not affecting the current oil supply whether we stay or go. Mission already accomplished - most of Iraq's oil is off the market - a accomplished that with sanctions. The invasion is a whole other thing.

[mmonk]

9. True. I was looking at the long term goal of our actions.

[screembloodymurder]

8. Even if we withdraw, we won't leave until the oil runs out.

It doesn't matter who is elected. We're there to stay.

[bain_sidhe]

10. Yes.

My point being that there's more to the price of oil than Iraq.

Speculators and the possibility that the decline of the dollar (which most oil is still sold in) will lead oil-producers to start selling their oil in some other currency both have more to do with the price of oil today. Nobody knows what would happen with those two things, if we left Iraq. On top of that, no one knows whether the factional fighting in Iraq, should we leave, would prevent them from adding appreciably (or at all) to the supply of oil. And if the civil war is quelled, there's still peak oil and China's ever growing demand for increasingly hard-to-get oil. (The easy stuff is mostly out of the ground, by now. Getting the dregs out costs more, and that will affect the price too.)

So, the answer to your question, "will oil go up or down," is "yes."

**edited to close the damn parentheses!**