April 12, 2007
Oil Is Root Of All Ills
National Review Online: U.S. Dependence On Middle East Oil Is Bad For Them ... And Us
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Skyrocketing Gas Prices
Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors a week ago is having a direct effect on gas prices. Iran is the fourth-largest oil producer and is capitalizing on the hostage situation. Anthony Mason reports.
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Iraq's Black-Market Oil
Each year in Iraq $5 billion is sucked out of the economy by oil smugglers who sell the product on the black market. Some of that cash is used to fund insurgents. Allen Pizzey reports.
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Bush: Reduce Oil Consumption
CBS News RAW: Speaking at a Ford plant in Claycomo, Mo., President Bush spoke about finding alternative energy sources to reduce U.S. oil consumption.
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(CBS/AP)
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It is usually silly to offer a single solution to complex problems. But it's hard not to when looking at the serial savagery in Iran and the Arab world.
Oil the huge profits it provides and the insidious influence it gives those selling it explains most of the world's worries over the Middle East.
No, that does not mean the United States is fighting in Iraq to get control of its petroleum. For all the charges of "No blood for oil," the American occupation has neither been able to reverse a decline in oil production in Iraq nor alleviate skyrocketing oil prices worldwide. And, recently, the first new contracts of the now-transparent Iraqi oil ministry went to non-American companies.
What it does mean, though, is that the vast imported-petroleum needs of the West, India and China, and the resulting huge profits that pour into oil-exporting states, have super-sized the Middle East's problems.
Currently, much of the Islamic world is struggling to come to grips with modernity and globalization. Yet while the West pays little attention to disenchanted Muslims in India, Indochina or Malaysia, we focus our attention on Iranian and Arab radicals. They alone, thanks to oil, have the cash to fund jihadists and hate-filled madrassas.
The Palestinian problem illustrates this point. Since Israel's occupation of land taken after the 1967 war, much of the world has seen this issue as threatening to regional and global peace.
Such old territorial disputes are, of course, common and go relatively unnoticed throughout the world. Japan's Kurile Islands are still held by Russia. Tibet has been absorbed by China. Nuclear Pakistan and nuclear India fight over Kashmir. The list goes on.
Yet it's the anger over the tiny West Bank that in the past caused the Arab patrons of the Palestinians to embargo oil to the West and create long gas lines in Europe and America. As a result, a single suicide bomber from Jericho earns more press than anonymous thousands slaughtered in Darfur.
Today, terrorists operate from East Timor to Peru. But global anxiety has been continually focused on Middle Eastern terrorists, from the Palestinian assassins and hijackers of the 1970s to al Qaeda's suicide bombers. These killers alone have had the means to disrupt the Western way of life. Take away Hezbollah's Iranian petrodollars and it could never afford weapons and foot soldiers to slaughter Westerners in the Middle East and beyond.
An oil-rich Saddam Hussein was a threat only because he had purchased more military hardware than is owned by most European powers and used it to attack oil-exporting neighbors in a bid to control more of the worlds petroleum reserves.
In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is confident that powerful nations abroad will overlook his thuggery in hopes of getting a chance to buy his country's oil or in worry that any tension would send world prices even higher. Ahmadinejad also knows and fears that without supporting terrorists or trying to acquire a nuclear bomb that he'd be just another tinhorn loudmouth like Cuba's Fidel Castro or Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.
At the same time, vast oil profits do little to help and probably much to harm Middle Eastern countries. Unlike in places where economic achievement is the result of savvy business leaders, a hardworking labor force and a literate public, tribal hierarchies in the Middle East simply metamorphosed into billion-dollar nations by virtue of sitting atop crude oil.
One result is a big inferiority complex in the Middle East. There is always the fear that gas and oil reserves will dry up, leaving a Libya, Iran or Saudi Arabia with as much global attention as a Chad or Bulgaria.
Another result is unstable societies. When nations acquire collective wealth gradually through their own industry, a middle class can arise. But in the Middle East, a few tribal and religious sects with oil are fabulously wealthy; most everyone else is abjectly poor. Illegitimate monarchies and jittery dictatorships always in fear of coups, terrorists and revolutions depend upon oil-needy foreigners, trading scarce oil and endless petrodollars for export goods and protection.
If the United States could curb its voracious purchases of foreign oil by using conservation, additional petroleum production, nuclear power, alternate fuels, coal gasification and new technologies, the world price might return to below $40 a barrel.
That decline would dry up the oil profits of those in the Middle East who now so desperately use them to ensure that their own problems must also be the world's.
By Victor Davis Hanson
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.




The middle east problem is and always be centered around resolving the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
My personal feeling is that the Palestinians deserve a place to live (like everybody else ) and maybe it's time the Israelis gave alittle.
"For all the charges of "No blood for oil," the American occupation has neither been able to reverse a decline in oil production in Iraq nor alleviate skyrocketing oil prices worldwide."
WRONG!!!!! Oil prices were low and stable before Bush went into Iraq. The WAR OF CHOICE IS WHAT HAS CAUSED THE SKYROCKETING of oil prices.
Posted by Terrapin78 at 04:15 PM : Apr 12, 2007
You're ignoring the facts.
I don't think this article is rightly written.
In last week's article titled: Begging for A bombing, something was wrong here. I paste below:
Iran's serial provocations seem to have finally
turned off even those in the West who were always willing to give it a second and third chance....
....The Iranian government is desperate to provoke the West to win back friends in the Islamic world, and to quell growing unrest at home.
Can someone help me with Hanson's article?
Stop driving,give up the condoms, and anything else that petroleum is neccesary for. Even the plastics in your computer. If there's no market, then they will be stopped. No Market=No Profit!!!!
[force GM, Ford, Chrysler and the rest to improve mileage by 40 to 50%, and you'll never convince me that they can't, not with all the technology that is a their disposal. Then we could tell those Shieks, mullahs, princes etc wherte to sick their oil. ]
Cut your use by 40, to 50 percent and you'll cut your sponsorship of terror by 40 or 50 percent, plus you'll put a hurt on Bush, Cheney, and Texas! Remember in America free enterprise is governed by your desire to purchase. We wouldn't be dependent on foriegn oil if all the university yuppies stopped hindering American production in drilling, agriculture, fishing, logging, etc... You can't have it both ways. Yuppies are the reason America has had to become dependant on outside rescources. Now they're all over these blogs whining, blaming, and creating conspiracy theories, all the while showing their true tendacies to project socialism. How hypocritical to suggest we're forcing ourselves upon other countries, then claim we should force detroits big 3 to produce vehicles that will allow you the luxury of driving anywhere you want for less money. Buy a pony, or walk.
Vehicles exist that give you higher mileage, but people in a free society CHOOSE not to drive them. Don't blame GM, Ford, Mercedes et al for producing what you want to buy from them.
Same *** with arguing about Exxon. Supply and demand drive the price of petroleum. China is rabidly buying up futures in critical energy assets. Wise people will recognize this as reality, not some EVIL PLOT from the abyss
Can you post a rule that no one is allowed to post leftist bullsh*t talking points without having actually researched in a library the oil exports, ME geo-politics and Islamic culture?
THERE ARE A LOT OF GOVERNMENTS THAT WANT AMERICA TO STAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST EVEN THOUGH WE COULD BE ENERGY INDEPENDENT IN TWO YEARS IF WE WANTED!
Additionally, Hanson makes it seem that Saddam had such huges stockpiles of weapons ("more...than is owned by most European military powers"). Excuse me, but European military powers amount to Great Britain and Germany. Let's not forget the mighty fortresses of Norway and Lichtenstein. God help us if the military hardware of Sweden should ever be unleashed.... get over it, Hanson. Falsehoods and secretive corporate energy and rebuilding deals led the day with Iraq.
So sorry, but the prez did not make all the anti drilling laws, nor did he block all the attempts to drill here in the good ole USA. Yuppies, and yes some politicians from long gone administrations are to blame for our dependency on foriegn imports. Although we have to look no further than the mirror to see who really is at fault for consuming too much. With all our dependancy on imports, all any country has to do is price us out of the ball game.
A woman from Los Angeles, who was a tree hugger and an anti-hunter,
purchased a piece of timberland,
There was a large tree on one of the highest points in the tract. She
wanted a good view of the natural splendor of her land so she started
to climb the big tree. As she neared the top she encountered an endangered
owl that attacked her. In her haste to escape, the woman slid down the
tree to the ground and got many splinters in her crotch.
In considerable pain, she hurried to the nearest doctor She told him
she was an environmentalist and an anti-hunter and how she came to
get all the splinters.
The doctor listened to her story with great patience and then told
her to go into the examining room and he would see if he could help her.
She sat and waited three hours before the doctor reappeared. The angry
woman demanded, "What took you so long?"
He smiled and then told her, "Well, I had to get permits from the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service and the Bureau of
Land Management before I could remove old-growth timber from a
recreational area. I'm sorry, but they turned me down."
GOD BLESS AMERICA
"So sorry, but the prez did not make all the anti drilling laws, nor did he block all the attempts to drill here in the good ole USA. Yuppies, and yes some politicians from long gone administrations are to blame for our dependency on foriegn imports. Although we have to look no further than the mirror to see who really is at fault for consuming too much. With all our dependancy on imports, all any country has to do is price us out of the ball game."
nicely put bourbon...
are you a vegas lounge lizard?
maybe a nascar groupie?
Don't bother me, I'm in the middle of my Elvis Impersonation. "Thank you, thankyou very much.." Now I'm off to strap on my beer bladder, and to scream "go Dale" at the track. Oh ya he's dead..
Just another play out of the "liberal guide to anarchy". Call them names and stick out your tounge when you can't compete intellectually.So Sad
Stop buying gasoline NOW!
Find an electric car and buy it.
Here are your choices:
1. Stop buying gasoline.
2. Shut up.
Any questions?
Oil %u2014 the huge profits it provides and the insidious influence it gives those selling it %u2014 explains most of the world's worries over the Middle East.
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This is the plain and simple truth...
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by samthetvcat
April 15, 2007 10:52 AM PDT
- I'd LOVE to be able to believe that Dumbya and Exxon greed are mostly responsible for skyrocketing pump prices, but unfortunately yeah it's impossible for me to overlook the fact that Iraq is pumping out less crude now than they did under Saddam and that China's demand is way up. Plus look at how much corn farmers are now producing - and aren't oil reserves at a lower level. Even if the Israel/Palestine problem is just as big a cause of the unrest on the Middle East, I have agree that if we are able to work on our oil dependency, that gives creeps like Ahmadinejad less power over us.
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See all 35 CommentsIt frustrates me too when people say we need to cut down on our oil without offering solutions that are viable to most of us. But one I heard of that's doable is to make sure you keep your tires fully inflated. Some researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/050921_tire.html) found with an unscientific poll that 80 out of 81 of us drive around with underinflated tires to a degree that costs people on average $432 of extra gas a year at current prices - $432! It makes a huge difference because the air pressure decreases in the cold and the extra surface area of the tires on the concrete increases the drag and therefore the work the car has to do to propel it forward. Hopefully other people will come up with other solutions that are also cost-effective - glad to see those energy saver lightbulbs have come down in price.