The Energy Wars
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12617717/site/newsweek/
The rise of a new global energy elite means high oil and gas prices are
here to stay.
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 3:19 a.m. ET May 7, 2006
May 3, 2006 - It is a mantra of the globalization crowd. In today's
global economy, we are told, all that really matters is which country
produces the best brains and skills. The world is flat, after all. The
playing field is leveled. Wrong, wrong and wrong. What also matters, we
are learning, is who controls the world's energy resources. Evo
Morales's abrupt decision earlier this week to nationalize Bolivia's
natural-gas industry was only the latest worrisome move in a long-term
trend. Morales, a leftist elected president last December, was
apparently influenced by a meeting he had in Havana last Saturday with
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who's rocketed to international
prominence by doing much the same thing to his country's oil industry.
President Chavez, sitting atop his growing pile of petrodollars, has
gleefully thumbed his nose at Washington's efforts to rein him in.
Similarly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is defiantly enriching
uranium and sneering at Western threats of sanctions. And he obviously
thinks he can, perhaps because no one is threatening to cut off Iran's
oil exports as part of the forthcoming sanctions plan.
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