With or without military force, there are obvious limits to any US government's ability to nudge autocratic petrostate regimes toward democratic reform--especially as long as America is becoming ever more dependent on oil imports. An addict is hardly able to force his pusher to change his criminal activities. In the United States, 4 percent of the world's population consumes one-fourth of the world's energy. One out of every seven barrels of oil produced in the world is burned on American highways. This is not quite a position that allows us to tell Arab oil sheiks and Central Asian despots, "If you don't stop churning out angry young men, we won't do business with you anymore."
Nation article - subscriber
Globalist article - free
This is a nice commentary by an investigative journalist describing how U.S. intervention in the Middle East and the Caspian is breeding more terrorism. It comes from the author of the book The New Great Game - Lutz Kleveman.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated. There may be some delay before your comment is published. It all depends on how much time M has in the day. But please comment!