Friday, February 01, 2008

Whose side are you on, anyway?   [Edward John Craig]

Energy Victory author Robert Zubrin responds:

Gentlemen, thanks for your interesting commentary on NRO today. Unfortunately, you seem to be missing the point.

You say that if the price of oil is too high, people should just choose something else.

That is precisely what I am proposing they be allowed to do.

The problem, however, is that right now they do not have that option. That is why oil is at $90 a barrel. Hugo Chavez and his Iranian counterpart have proclaimed their desire to send oil to $200 per barrel. If people continue to have no alternative, that is entirely feasible. What will you say then? Presumably the same thing you are saying now – “people should just choose something else” — while continuing to oppose measures that would give that choice.

This kind of thinking leaves us at the mercy of our enemies, while providing them with the wherewithal to wage war against us.

Consider this: In 1972, the USA spent $4 billion for oil imports, an amount that equaled 1.2 percent of our defense budget for that year. In 2006, we paid $260 billion, a sum equal to half our defense budget. Over the same period, Saudi oil revenues rose from $2.7 billion to $200 billion, and they have used a substantial portion of that take to fund the promotion of jihad internationally. Simultaneously, the Iranians are using the oil revenue that you seem so willing to provide them with to fund their nuclear program, as well as to establish Hezbollah bases in the western hemisphere, among other places.

Furthermore, consider this: In 1973, the USA was only 30 percent dependent on foreign oil. Yet the Arabs were able to send our economy into chaos by cutting off their oil exports. Today, as a result of 35 years of non action due to politicians heeding the kinds of arguments you have been making, we are 60 percent dependent. Thus we are now much more vulnerable than we were then, and could be devastated either by a willful cutoff of supply via Arab league or OPEC decision, or an accidental cutoff due to unforeseen action by any one of a number of irrational forces at large in the Gulf.

It is completely insane for us to keep ourselves so vulnerable. If we are to be secure, we must open the fuel market in a way that breaks the enemy’s power to loot us at will.

The Islamists are rich in oil. We are rich in coal and biomass. If we want to win against them, we need to take action that increases the value of our resources while decreasing the value of theirs. Coal and biomass can both easily be turned into alcohol fuels. But the cars on the road today can’t use alcohol fuels. By making it a standard that any car sold in the USA be flex fueled — i.e. capable of running on either alcohol or gasoline — we will make flex fuel the international standard, and force gasoline to compete at the pump against alcohol everywhere in the world. In doing so, we will open the world fuel market up to what WE have, not just what THEY have. That’s how we win. If we don’t do that, they will win.

So it comes down to this: Who do you want to win, us or them?

02/01 12:48 AMShare