When we started this war on terror, one of Bush's big points was that we have to "Drain the Swamp". He was talking about rogue/weak states that allow an environment conducive to strong terrorist organizational development -- much like a warm, moist agar dish is conducive to growing mold/bacteria/yeast.
This is a good and necessary first step. Such states amount to the covered petri dish that protects the agar and the developing organisms.
But the actual agar is money, and oil means lots of it. And our dependence on foriegn oil means we are actually pouring the very agar these organisms need all over the places where they are most densely populated.
Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics hits the nail on the head with this article.
Would Iran be nearly as difficult a problem if their oil production didn't make up so much of the World Oil Market? Nope. They'd have all the leverage of a wet noodle if it weren't for that.
Our big energy giants have got to get serious -- almost in a panicked way, about not only reducing but ENDING our reliance on foriegn oil -- which basically means coming up with alternate energy sources. That would deal a killer blow to the terrorist element -- and make international politics a lot less messy as well.
Wishful thinking? I don't know. I have a lot of faith in humanity. It's ingenuity time.
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