Friedman still in fantasy land

Thomas Friedman starts out on the right track today,

Of all the shortsighted policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, none have been worse than their opposition to energy conservation and a gasoline tax. If we had imposed a new gasoline tax after 9/11, demand would have been dampened and gas today would probably still be $2 a gallon. But instead of the extra dollar going to Saudi Arabia - where it ends up with mullahs who build madrasas that preach intolerance - that dollar would have gone to our own Treasury to pay down our own deficit and finance our own schools. In fact, the Bush energy policy should be called No Mullah Left Behind.

but then quickly returns to the same drivel from fantasy land we have come to expect. While admitting that current energy policies support terrorism and that the Bush administration's benign neglect toward the Arab-Israeli issue have contributed to terrorism he still insists the a democratic republic in Iraq is possible.

Building a decent Iraq is necessary to help reverse such trends, but it is not sufficient. We need a much more comprehensive approach, particularly if we fail in Iraq. The Bush team does not offer one. It has treated the Arab-Israeli issue with benign neglect, failed to find any way to communicate with the Arab world and adopted an energy policy that is supporting the worst Arab oil regimes and the worst trends. Phil Verleger, one of the nation's top energy consultants and a longtime advocate of a gas tax, puts it succinctly: "U.S. energy policy today is in support of terrorism - not the war on terrorism."

He then makes it obvious that he has absolutely no knowledge of the dynamics of oil supply,

We need to dramatically cut our consumption of oil and bring the price back down to $20 a barrel. Nothing would do more to stimulate reform in the Arab-Muslim world. Oil regimes do not have to modernize or govern well. They just buy off their people and their mullahs. Governments without oil have to reform to create jobs. People do not change when you tell them they should - they change when they tell themselves they must.

Sorry Tom, world oil consumption is on the rise and the oil is half gone; we won't see $20 a barrel oil ever again. The American people are in denial when it comes to oil and would not allow either Democrat or Republican politicians to upset their dream world.