There is a simple reason to demand the pullout of coalition forces from Iraq now, well in advance of establishing a stable government there. It would fit in with th al-Qaeda blueprint for establishing a new Islamic Caliphate in Baghdad, and from there, consolidate the power of the jihadists to effectively control the world's access to oil.
The War on Terrorism was never to acquire oil for only the US, it was to assure access to the oil in the region for ALL the world market. This includes China (now surpassing Japan in fossil energy usage), Europe, India and the emerging countries in Africa.
Now, more than ever, we have a compelling reason to develop and apply all the engineering and technology necessary to extract Methane Hydrate from ocean depths. There is talk that it may be a decade or more before the methods are economically viable, but a crash program to speed up the extraction and processing of Methane Hydrate would seem to be an excellent middle-range project to protect the world's economy while this period of transition is going on.
There shall always be plenty of demand for petroleum, as feedstock for many industries other than the production of motor fuel. Most internal-combustion engines, whether spark-ignition or Diesel, run perfectly well on methane, or with the knowledge we have of chemical engineering, some tailor-made fuels can be reformulated out of methane, with ZERO sulfur emissions and clean-burning, no particulates at all.
In fact, switching from pumping petroleum out of the ground to harvesting of Methane Hydrate from the ocean depths may well result in PREVENTING future global warming. There is strong reason to believe that rapid global warming in past millenia was due to widespread release of methane into the atmosphere, due to the warming of the ocean water at depths greater than 1,500 feet, causing Methane Hydrate to go through phase change. This sudden release of methane is believed to be one of the phenomena that contributes to sudden "white squalls" or mystery disappearances of boats and planes over the "Bermuda Triangle".
Controlled harvest of Methane Hydrate could well PREVENT these eruptions and the consequences. Of course, there is also the potential for even greater mischief to be carried out in the deliberate release of Methane Hydrate.
The War on Terrorism was never to acquire oil for only the US, it was to assure access to the oil in the region for ALL the world market.
I think it is dangerous to even suggest that securing the oil in any way precipitated the war. If we wanted the oil all we had to do is remove the sanctions. But certainly the oil is safer in the hands of the new government who is not likely to use it as a bargaining chip as did Saddam. You will recall how he set the wells on fire to discourage any further aggression against him.
Methane, yes, also if we want energy we are capable of constructing more nuclear power plants, but the liberals don’t seem to want that. Isn’t that interesting?