by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

I dunno who this guy is , but this post--The S-Train Canvas: They are what they are so deal with it!--has the kernel of a good idea. However, it does not take into account one pertinent fact: China can and will absorb any slack in oil consumption that our pullout from that market might cause. Thus, when we say "embargo", we had best think about what the huge and still growing Chinese market will say about that. In other words, are we ready to go to the mat with the Chinese over this?

One of the faults we find with the Bush administration is that it did not consider all the ramifications of their Iraqi policy. Bush and his advisors did not have anything in mind other than bringing down Saddam Hussein. Trying to embargo Middle Eastern oil without considering all the ramifications, such as outright armed conflich with the most populous nation in the world, obviously have not been considered. To make such a policy work, we would have to destroy every pipeline leading to an international border anywhere in Eurasian landmass as well as making sure that not a tanker in the world got anywhere near any terminal which might have access to Middle Eastern oil. Then we would have to have the cojones to stand up to the Chinese and tell them "No!". Finally, we would have to exercise self-discipline in energy usage while we build the alternate energy infrastructure to a point where it begins to absorb significant amounts of the deferred demand. Personally, I don't think that, at this time in our nation's existence, America is prepared to do all that. I may be wrong in this assessment, but I don't think so.

So, this is a good idea in that it gets us thinking outside the conventional box. Maybe what we should be doing is underwriting the creation of the alternate energy infrastructure first. Then, when it is in place and we can turn off the Middle Eastern oil spigots in this country, we can use the expertise and industrial base to export these energy sources to potential customers of Middle Eastern oil. That way we do not have to project our military force around the world, and we make customers and allies out of potential opponents. We used to be good at this sort of thing. What happened?

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