I remember, as an idealistic and somewhat naive university student, marching down to Trafalgar Square in London with thousands of others demanding for troops to be withdrawn from Iraq.
That public anger only escalated as particulars about the war were revealed to indicate that the entire mission was somewhat of a deception and the occupation unnecessarily long.
However, Oil and Finance: The Epic Corruption sheds light on one of the many reasons the West took so long to leave: Saudi Arabia had insisted troops stay in Iraq, using their oil supplies as leverage. Learsy sprinkles his book with similarly shocking nuggets of information throughout.
Through a series of essays in The Huffington Post between 2006 and 2010 chronicling oil price fluctuations, he reveals the crooked ways of the oil industry and draws connections with a variety of issues, such as national security, economic stability, global politics and environmental concerns.
He highlights the fact that the oil industry doesn’t work according to free market principles and is instead artificially manipulated by its largest suppliers, leaving importers, industries and individuals vulnerable to sudden changes.
Not only does he look abroad at the role of the OPEC cartel, which pulls most of the strings in determining oil prices, he looks inwards too at slimy multinational oil companies, all the while consistently calling for greater oil self-reliance and adoption of green energy sources.
Looking back through collated real-time coverage provides much needed hindsight and clarification of the oil industry. However as most of the book is his own strong opinion it can become hard to view the issue impartially.
Alisha Haridasani
