You're Gonna Have to Face It, You're Addicted to Oil

The Hidden Friedman (01 Feb 06)

Your lights are on, but you're not home
Your mind is not your own

Sorry... just humming a lil' Robert Palmer after watching the SOTU address tonight, where President Bush (let's call him "George") took the first step in conquering his need for Texas Tea--admitting that he's powerless over his addiction and that his life (and the livelihood of the nation at large) had become unmanageable. From the NYTimes transcript:

Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem. America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy sources. And we are on the threshold of incredible advances. So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative, a 22 percent increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas. To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies and clean, safe nuclear energy.

We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.

Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal, to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025. By applying the talent and technology of America, this country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.

Hmmm. Sounds like George has been reading some Tom Friedman columns of late. Speaking of which, due to the time of publishing, Mr. Friedman didn't have the chance to gloat in print in today's column--titled, funnily enough, Addicted to Oil (full column accessible to Times Select subscribers)--but he did continue on with his geo-green meme (which is tied, conveniently, into one of George's other favorite topics--the spreading of democracy and liberty):

So far the democracy wave the Bush team has helped to unleash in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11 has brought to power hard-line Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq, Palestine and Iran, and paved the way for a record showing by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. If we keep this up, in a few years Muslim clerics will be in power from Morocco to the border of India. God bless America.

But is this all America's doing? Not really. It's actually the product of 50 years of petrolism — or petroleum-based politics — in the Arab-Muslim world. The Bush team's fault was believing that it could change that — that it could break the Middle East's addiction to authoritarianism without also breaking America's addiction to oil. That's the illusion here. In the Arab world, oil and authoritarianism are inextricably linked.

How so? Let's start with Iron Rule No. 1 of Arab-Muslim political life today: You cannot go from Saddam to Jefferson without going through Khomeini — without going through a phase of mosque-led politics.

Why? Because once you sweep away the dictator or king at the top of any Middle East state, you go into free fall until you hit the mosque — as the U.S. discovered in Iraq. There is nothing between the ruling palace and the mosque. The secular autocratic regimes, like those in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Iraq, never allowed anything to grow under their feet. They never allowed the emergence of any truly independent judiciary, media, progressive secular parties or civil society groups — from women's organizations to trade associations.

The mosque became an alternative power center because it was the only place the government's iron fist could not fully penetrate. As such, it became a place where people were able to associate freely, incubate local leaders and generate a shared opposition ideology.

That is why the minute any of these Arab countries hold free and fair elections, the Islamists burst ahead. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood won 20 percent of the seats; Hamas went from nowhere to a governing majority. In both societies the ruling secular parties — the N.D.P. in the case of Egypt and Fatah in the case of Palestine — were spurned as corrupt appendages of the authoritarian state, which they were.

After noting that military regimes in Asia--such as Taiwan and South Korea--turned to civilian government due free markets and the lack of oil, he returns to the Middle East:

In the Arab-Muslim world, however, the mullah dictators in Iran and the secular dictators elsewhere have been able to sustain themselves in power much longer, without ever empowering their people, without ever allowing progressive parties to emerge, because they had oil or its equivalent — massive foreign aid.

Hence Iron Rule No. 2: Removing authoritarian leaders in the Arab-Muslim world, either by revolution, invasion or election, is necessary for the emergence of stable democracies there — but it is not sufficient. The only way the new leaders will allow for real political parties, institutions, free press, competitive free markets and proper education — a civil society — is if we also bring down the price of oil and make internal reform the only way for these societies to sustain themselves. People change when they have to, not when we tell them to.

If you just remove the dictators, and don't also bring down the price of oil, you end up with Iran — with mullah dictators replacing military dictators and using the same oil wealth to keep their people quiet and themselves in power. Only when oil is back down to $20 a barrel will the transition from Saddam to Jefferson not get stuck in "Khomeini Land."

Now, back to the late, great Robert Palmer:

Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough