Renewable energy and the war on terror

Years ago a friend of mine in Israel bought a gas guzzling 9 passenger GMC van. On one of his first visits to a gas station he pulled in next to a guy who was filling up an identical vehicle. Leaning out the window my friend asked his compatriot "How many kilometers do you get to the liter?"

The guy looked over "If you start asking that question," he said, "you'll never drive anywhere."

New York Times star columnist Thomas Friedman would have been appalled. Last week he climbed back onto his green revolution horse and advised US President Barak Obama to impose a $1 a gallon "freedom tax" on American drivers. As a rationale he invoked comedian Bill Maher who quipped that the imposition of the tax would "make the bad guys fight all of us." What he means is that in the same way that the Arabs can use the "oil weapon" against Western democracies, the US and others can declare an "oil war" on the Arab Sheikdoms and simply buy less gas. That would throw their economies into a tailspin forcing them to stop funding terror and the expansion of Islamist educational institutions. The radical Islamist revolution would literally run out of gas. The world, and Israel would be a better and safer place.

The caveat is that the only way to get Americans to cut down on the use of gasoline is to charge them more money per gallon. That's something the politicians and the gas companies are loath to do.

Of course charging another dollar a gallon would only bring US prices to between 3 and 4 dollars a gallon. That's between a half to two thirds of what we Israelis currently pay for gas, a price difference, by the way, almost completely a result of our own draconian tax rates. In any event we Israelis nestle up to the gas pump and pay whatever it costs with no more than a low grumble, a whimper really, of resignation. 

So I wonder whether a hike in the price of gas would have any effect other than to fill government coffers.

A financial column in this week's New Yorker magazine makes the same point. According to the article it's not clear to economists how much difference a gradual rise in gas prices, (as opposed to the rapid rise of between June 2007 ands July 2008) makes to consumer behavior. 

Nevertheless, Friedman's basic point is a good one. Whatever the West can do to limit the quantity and price of oil bought from the Arab oil sheiks constitutes a whack in the war against terror. The Iranian right wing mullahs and their presidential puppet, writes Friedman, would have a hard time sustaining their belligerence in the face of international sanctions if the price of oil was "$25 a barrel."

That means that a revolution in energy policy whether or not it includes a $1 rise in the price of oil may be the West's best weapon in the war on terror.   

Over the past six or so years there has taken place the largest transfer of wealth in world history. The West has paid to the Arab world trillions of dollars. Saudi oil billionaires with the encouragement of Saudi Arabia's Wahabi mullahs used this new wealth to establish madrasas throughout the Muslim world including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Etcetera-stan. Saudi money funds not only anti-Israel activities but also terrorist training camps and the shadowy minions of al-Qaida and the other violent anti-Western fanatics. 

At the same time Iranian oil money is paying directly for the violence of terrorism through arms transfers and cash to Hizbullah and Hamas. 

What would the world look like without the vast wealth transfer from the Western world to the Sheikdoms of the Middle East? 

True, the Iranian revolution would have happened anyway, but the ayatollahs would be too busy keeping food on the tables of Iranian families to worry about Israel and its enemies. At least they wouldn't have the resources to pay for terrorists training and weapons. The Islamic education system including payment to mosques in Britain where jihadists are recruited would never have happened, nor would there have been funds to establish the thousands of madrasas that are spreading hatred of Israel and the West across the Muslim world. In effect, the whole revival of extreme Islam that underpins both terror and Iranian atomic bomb would not have happened.

So Thomas Friedman is half right. What the US needs to win the war on terror is to drastically reduce oil consumption. But the band aide of an oil tax will not save the patient. What's necessary is a Manhattan project of Green technology including the creation of infrastructure that will wean the US economy off the mother's milk of Arab oil as soon as possible. 

Israel's lilliputian economy can contribute advanced ideas like Project Better Place to switch cars from gas to electric power but even a complete end to our use of oil wouldn't do much.

So can we pro-Israel Americans and Israelis do?

AIPAC and the other pro-Israel political organizations could push for an initiative that is both politically correct and go a long way toward solving the political problems in the Middle East. They should get behind Thomas Friedman and the other proponents of a green revolution and push for alternative energy sources. The government of Israel should invest whatever necessary in Green technology that can be transferred to the West.

It's a strategic direction that will help win the war on terror and strengthen Israel more than any other than anything else we can do.