http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2006/05/cost-of-dependence-
on-foreign-fossil.html
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The Cost of Dependence on Foreign Fossil Fuel
Here's Max Boot:
Of the top 14 oil exporters, only one is a well-established
liberal democracy — Norway. Two others have recently made a
transition to democracy — Mexico and Nigeria. Iraq is trying to
follow in their footsteps. That's it. Every other major oil
exporter is a dictatorship — and the run-up in oil prices has
been a tremendous boon to them.
My associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, Ian
Cornwall, calculates that if oil averages $71 a barrel this year,
10 autocracies stand to make about $500 billion more than in
2003, when oil was at $27. This windfall helps to squelch liberal
forces and entrench noxious dictators in such oil producers as
Russia (which stands to make $115 billion more this year than in
2003) and Venezuela ($36 billion). Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez
can buy off their publics with generous subsidies and ignore
Western pressure while sabotaging democratic developments from
Central America to Central Asia.
The "dictatorship dividend" also subsidizes Sudan's ethnic
cleansing (it stands to earn $4.7 billion more this year than in
2003), Iran's development of nuclear weapons ($45 billion) and
Saudi Arabia's proselytization for Wahhabi fundamentalism ($149
billion). Even in such close American allies as Kuwait ($35
billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($36 billion), odds are
that some of the extra lucre will find its way into the pockets
of terrorists.
As I've repeated more times than I can count, we are running a
similar risk of developing the same sort of relationship with
nations that have large reserves of natural gas. Why do we need
to repeat that mistake?
Thanks to Instapundit for the pointer.
--
Ms. Libertarian - United States of America
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