[Dr. Frank fan]

Another thing that's "all about oil", in my opinion, is the viciousness and tenacity of the "insurgency" in Iraq. If some insurgent group were to come out on top of that struggle and kick us out, they'd end up controlling a lot of oil. Is it so much of a stretch to think that's why they're fighting so hard?

It seems there's some unwritten rule against accusing non-Westerners of fighting "for oil", however. We set up a democracy and let them sign contracts with others, we've paid a huge cost and gained nothing, yet we're still accused of "fighting for oil"; various militias intentionally blow up civilians in markets and religious places to try to gain control of the country by force, and they're not accused of "fighting for oil". Weird.

Anyway, I mostly agree with Hanson's prescriptions here. Certainly one thing we could do immediately would be to allow people to get the oil out from underneath the ground that already belongs to the United States. It strikes me as, simply, crazy that we don't do this. The United States has a lot of territory with oil underneath it, and yet for some reason, we don't let people get that oil. We'd rather pay high oil prices and then constantly agonize and spend tons of political, military, and monetary capital on making sure the Middle East remains "stable". Why?

I'm not as convinced about the effects of conservation however. Conservation means artificially reducing our demand for oil per person. That suppresses the world price of oil (maybe not very much, but still). That means that new oil exploration, bringing new facilities online etc. becomes marginally less lucrative. Which means, fewer new entries into the oil market. Saudi Arabia, of course, will continue to pump oil. But the Canada oil shale? Hmm.

If conservation is worth doing, it's worth doing for other reasons (for example, it saves individuals money long-term; if oil is finite, it extends the supply; etc). But I doubt it would have a positive effect on the Middle East. I want the global price of oil to be high, to be honest, because I want new entries into the market! The current situation is bad for us because the market is so dominated by unstable and unanswerable petrocracies from the Middle East. Well? The only way to fix that is to make the market not dominated by those places. Which means we have to encourage new entries into the market. Suppressing our demand for oil simply doesn't seem like a good way to do this.

Another benefit of high demand is that it could cause certain ME oil fields, which are projected to dry up, to dry up sooner. Don't we want that?

My answer is high (not unnaturally high, but naturally high) demand AND high supply. We have the ability to enact both, and we should, and until we do it's hard for me to believe our leaders are serious about addressing the problem of ME oil suppliers.

[Uncle Miltie]

Countries with oil that generally don’t export terrorism include:

Canada
Mexico
Britain
Norway
Nigeria
Indonesia
Russia

Countries without oil that do export terrorism include:

Pakistan
Syria
Lebanon
Egypt
Yemen
Somalia

The coincidence of oil with terrorism is exactly that: A coincidence.

If Saudi Arabia were a poor, backwards outpost without oil, but with virulent Wahabbism, do you suppose it would export significantly less terrorism? If so, how do you explain Egypt which has no oil and does export significant terror?

Oil is not the problem.

Virulent Wahabbism, Islamofascism, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, etc. are the problem. Fight the problem, not the natural resources that are occassionally in the same neighborhood.

[Uncle Miltie]

"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."

Inferiority is a societal problem, not associated with natural resources. The Middle East was inferior before, during and will be after the discovery and use of its oil.

VDH is brilliant when it comes to international relations, war, society, etc. But he should steer clear of economics, which is not his strong suit.

[sageb1]

Oil for Allah.

[caveat emptor]

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.

Yep, time for some down-sizing of the sheiks, mullas, presidents-for-life, and so on.

Start with ANWR, Grand-Staircase Escalante coal fields in Utah, new nuclear facilities including Thorium, and forget about the ethanol flim-flam (start a new Corn For Food program!). Oh, and if you're thinking of voting Democrat or some cute third party, don't.

[Tolik]

It's the Oil, Stupid!

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links:    FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
                His website: http://victorhanson.com/
                NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
                Pajamasmedia:   http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/

[webstersII]

“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.”

That about sums it up.

[RightWhale]

It is all about oil. If there were no oil there nobody would be there, and the war would be someplace else. Over what, who knows.