The Battle of the Pump

Thomas Friedman is a bright man, willing to think outside of the box. I don't agree with his position on Iraq or Israel, but he is smart enough to research his opinions and misses very little. In his column this week, he lashes out at the Administration's Energy policy. He calls it, "...the Bush energy policy should be called No Mullah Left Behind" because it supports the regimes in the Middle East who resist change towards democracy and modern economies: Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria, all major oil exporters.

Well worth the read. Also worth thinking about as you go to the polls.

NY Times Opinion > The Battle of the Pump

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."

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.

The Arab-Muslim world is in a must-change human development crisis, "but oil is like a narcotic that kills a lot of the pain for them and prevents real change,'' says David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Where is all the innovation in the Arab world today? In the places with little or no oil: Bahrain is working on labor reform, just signed a free-trade agreement with the U.S. and held the first elections in the Arab gulf, allowing women to run and vote. Dubai has made itself into a regional service center. And Jordan has a free-trade agreement with the U.S. and is trying to transform itself into a knowledge economy. Who is paralyzed or rolling back reforms? Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, all now awash in oil money.



Complete Article

The Battle of the Pump

October 7, 2004

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

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.

Our own No Child Left Behind program has not been fully

financed because the tax revenue is not there. But thanks

to the Bush-Cheney energy policy, No Mullah Left Behind has

been fully financed and is now the gift that keeps on

giving: terrorism.

Mr. Bush says we're in "a global war on terrorism.'' That's

right. But that war is rooted in the Arab-Muslim world.

That means there is no war on terrorism that doesn't

involve helping this region onto a more promising path for

its huge population of young people - too many of whom are

unemployed or unemployable because their oil-rich regimes

are resistant to change and their religious leaders are

resisting modernity.

A former Kuwaiti information minister, Sad bin Tefla, wrote

an article in a London Arabic daily, Al Sharq Al Awsat,

last Sept. 11 entitled "We Are All Bin Laden.'' He asked

why Muslim scholars and clerics had eagerly supported

fatwas condemning Salman Rushdie to death after he wrote a

novel deemed insulting to Islam, "The Satanic Verses,'' but

to this day no Muslim cleric has issued a fatwa condemning

Osama bin Laden for murdering nearly 3,000 innocent

civilians, badly damaging Islam.

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."

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.

The Arab-Muslim world is in a must-change human development

crisis, "but oil is like a narcotic that kills a lot of the

pain for them and prevents real change,'' says David

Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace.

Where is all the innovation in the Arab world today? In the

places with little or no oil: Bahrain is working on labor

reform, just signed a free-trade agreement with the U.S.

and held the first elections in the Arab gulf, allowing

women to run and vote. Dubai has made itself into a

regional service center. And Jordan has a free-trade

agreement with the U.S. and is trying to transform itself

into a knowledge economy. Who is paralyzed or rolling back

reforms? Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, all now awash in oil

money.

When did Jordan begin privatizing and deregulating its

economy and upgrading its education system? In 1989 - after

oil prices had slumped and the Arab oil states cut off

Jordan's subsidies. In 1999, before Jordan signed its U.S.

free-trade accord, its exports to America totaled $13

million. This year, Jordan will export over $1 billion

worth of goods to the U.S. In the wake of King Abdullah

II's reforms, Jordan's economy is growing at an annual rate

of over 7 percent, the government is installing computers

and broadband Internet links in every school, and it will

soon require anyone who wants to study Islamic law and

become a mosque preacher to first get a B.A. in something

else, so mosque leaders won't just come from those who

can't do anything else. "We had to go through a crisis to

accept the need for reform," says Jordan's planning

minister, Bassem Awadallah.

We have the power right now to stimulate similar trends

across the Arab world. It's the best way to fight a global

war on terrorism. If only we had a president and vice

president tough enough to fight this war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/opinion/07friedman.html?ex=1098467627&ei=1&en=31d6a41a1d3e3eda



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