Posted on 04/12/2007 7:53:09 AM PDT by rellimpank
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
The price of oil was near $40.00 for much of the late 80's-early 90's, and I don't recall terrorism stopping, so I'm not sure this cause and effect senario has worked in the past. Those $40.00 a barrel prices sure did hurt our domestic industry though, in fact, it was nearly decimated. The Middle Eastern fields,though, could still produce oil at a profit (although not as much of one).
I don’t argue at all your point that Radical Islam IS the enemy, and that in many cases it can be successful on a cheap.
My point is not to contradict yours, but to point out the importance of oil. Oily money windfall give Radical Islam a) finances to spread the ideology (madrases everywhere) and finance networks (decentralized, independent, different countries, different sources of money); b) inhibit normal development of their countries, resulting in dissatisfied hapless masses fuming at their impotence, blaming the West and providing fodder for Jihadists; c) threat of oil withdrawal pushes already soft from the multiculturalism mush West into appeasement submission and makes all but impossible a united response by the West to practically any (cheap or not) attack anywhere.
Remember Osama’s proclamation about strong and weak horses? Fear of skyrocketing oil prices forces the West to make very measured steps that appear (if not are) the signs of a weak horse.
Without this fear the Radical Islam would still be a threat. But the West would not be conditioned for more than 30 years to tiptoe around islamist atrocities.
“I enjoy following the alternate fuels subject, and there is lots going on. When, I wonder will it actually impact our demand for foreign oil?”
Here is my opinion as someone with a mech. engineering degree: the best way to transport hydrogen is bound as a hydrocarbon (i.e. oil). Nuclear is the way to go but is stymied by the greens. Most solar and alternative energies are pipe dreams - we’ve been actively pursuing them since at least 1970 with little success. Some of the tar sands and synthetic fuels may hold promise, but ethanol is a waste of money. The alternative fuels also tend to have hidden environmental costs.
In short, don’t sell your petroleum stocks short anytime soon.
The First Law of Petropolitics
Thomas L. Friedman
When I heard the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declare that the Holocaust was a “myth,” I couldn’t help asking myself: “I wonder if the president of Iran would be talking this way if the priceof oil were $20 a barrel today rather than $60 a barrel.” When I heard Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez telling British Prime Minister Tony Blair to “go right to hell” and telling his supporters that the U.S.-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas “can go to hell,” too, I couldn’t help saying to myself, “I wonder if the president of Venezuela would be saying all these things if the price of oil today were $20 a barrel rather than $60 a barrel, and his country had to make a living by empowering its own entrepreneurs, not just drilling wells.”
Snip
North Korea.
Cuba.
Fair enough. I object to those whose real objection is oil itself, who mistake oil for the enemy, who believe oil is our objective, or who suggest terror wouldn’t happen in the absence of oil.
If you view oil as a potential funding source just like opium poppies, black market cigarettes or “charity” at your local mosque, then I’m in agreement.
Choke off funding, as well as ideology, personnel, political support, fear of opposing terror, etc.
Financing terrorism is not a either/or proposition. It’s a question of degree.
The more they are de-funded, the less money they have to spend developing nukes and other weapons, the less money they have to buy influence, the worse their economy get and more restless the opposition party at home becomes.
The other, and more important issue, is that if the U.S. is not dependent on oil from the MidEast, then strategic decisions regarding the MidEast don’t have to take into account possible interruptions in the flow of oil. So, it is about the price of oil, but it’s also about reducing our dependence and interaction with that screwed up part of the world.
bttt
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