The President and the Prince

President Bush, meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, said, “The crown prince understands that it’s very important to make sure that prices are reasonable,” he said. “High oil prices damage markets.” He called U.S.-Saudi ties “an important relationship.”

Maybe, but it is not a relationship between equals, partners, allies or friends. And it is past time to be begging the Prince to turn up the tap.

President Bush, meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, said, “The crown prince understands that it’s very important to make sure that prices are reasonable,” he said. “High oil prices damage markets.” He called U.S.-Saudi ties “an important relationship.”

Maybe, but it is not a relationship between equals, partners, allies or friends. And it is past time to be begging the Prince to turn up the tap.

American energy policy must be more than shorthand for filling cars and heating houses (neither of which is insignificant, we admit). There are, at present, two main elements of American national security policy:

• Fighting the war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them.
• Expanding The Bush Doctrine, which postulates increased security based on consensual governments emerging in the Arab and Muslim world.

American energy policy should support these, but both are undermined by pouring oil dollars into precisely those states that support terrorists and oppress their people at precisely the time that American soldiers are fighting and dying in the field.

John Mauldin, president of Millennium Wave Advisors, turned energy thinking on its head in a recent presentation:

$100 [per barrel] oil is not the problem; it’s the solution, as converting to new energy sources is a huge growth dynamic. The need for new and cheaper sources of energy will compel all sorts of innovation and new invention. The steam engine was basically developed to pump water out of coalmines, as England needed new forms of energy to substitute for dwindling forests. Yet the collateral uses propelled the British Empire to its peak of economic power. Think of the resources and the money and the innovations that will come to play with the development of a new energy paradigm for the world.

Maybe, maybe not. But the inescapable point is that if we continue along the current pattern – begging for and paying for oil – we continue to provide resources to those who do us damage not only in the Middle East, but increasingly in Venezuela as well. Oil at $50 per barrel helps the anti-American Hugo Chavez purchase weapons from Russia and subsidizes Castro.

Diversification of energy sources is essential to the war effort and our long-term security. We need increased exploration within the U.S. including in ANWR as well as increased refinery capacity, alternative energy sources, increased nuclear energy, consideration of a hemispheric energy system, and increased efficiency. We need a domestic energy policy that defines the limiting of oil imports a matter of national security.

The Crown Prince should be told that the U.S. will buy such oil as the kingdom sells only until we shift the paradigm. Then we should use all of the resources at our command to shift it as fast as possible.