[Victoria Delsoul]

BUT WHAT ABOUT that oil? If push comes to shove can we do without it? Not a chance. America consumes almost 19 million barrels of oil every day, and produces fewer than 8 million. The balance comes from overseas suppliers, with Canada and Saudi Arabia each providing some 15 percent of our imports, Venezuela 14 percent, Mexico 11 percent, Nigeria about 8 percent, and Iraq about 6 percent.

We are, it should be noted, dependent not only on those countries from which we buy oil directly. Oil is a fungible product, and a shutdown of production in any country, even one from which we buy little oil, will affect the price we pay our own suppliers.

It also leaves us with one overriding strategic imperative: We must make clear that in the event of an upheaval in Saudi Arabia, we will take control of, protect, and run the kingdom's oil fields, which American oil companies originally developed after paying substantial sums for the right to do so. This may be a difficult policy to defend in the post-imperialist era, but that doesn't make planning for this contingency any less necessary. Our State Department is creative; surely, if called upon, it would be able to figure out an arrangement for operating the oilfields that would safeguard our supply and win the blessing of a revenue-hungry regime with a stake in the continued flow of oil. And surely such a regime, if it did not exist, could be invented.

For an immediate solution this makes sense to me.

Bump!

[Sabertooth]

"For an immediate solution this makes sense to me.

Bump!"

Bumping your bump!

Here's my energy policy:

1. Build fission nukes, the technology is here now.

2. Open up the American coal reserves that Bill Clinton put off limits in a land-grab that simultaneously appeased Earth Firsters and the proprietors of dirty Indonesioan coal, the Riadys.

3. Explore and develop all American oil reserves, including ANWR, and even those off my California coast and the coast of Florida, among others. That oil in the ground is our strategic reserve, let's get them tapped and ready to open the spigots at our whim.

4. Meanwhile, during peacetime, we consume as much as we can from foriegn sources. Doesn't matter if we're using foriegn oil then, as long as we can rapidly shift to domestic production should the need arise. Then we can wait them out, if necessary. As the Iraqi minister said, what are they going to do, drink their oil?

[dennisw]

He's not the first to say, take over the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil fields if push comes to shove. Both these nations have the problem of a lot of oil and no real military.

Iran and Iraq do have oil and do have large militaries. This makes them like hungry foxes at the hen house.

[Magician]

"...We must make clear that in the event of an upheaval in Saudi Arabia, we will take control of, protect, and run the kingdom's oil fields, which American oil companies originally developed after paying substantial sums for the right to do so..."

Why wait? Saudi Arabia is a fundementalist revolution waiting to happen.

What are the advantages of takeing back the Saudi oil Fields?:

1. We make several hundred billion per year from the oil rather than spending that amount.

2. We stabilize the world price of oil at $15 per barrel. The rest of the world will love us. No more quadrupling of oil prices, as in the past two years, throwing the world into a recession.

3. No more theives of OPEC.

4. No more blackmail, via threatened or actual oil boycotts/

By the way, we should encourage the Brits to take over the Kuwaiti oil fields for the same reason.