Why is this man smiling? I'll tell you why; he can't believe his luck; Oil addicted Americans keep flooding his treasury with obscene amounts cash. This makes his life very easy. He can afford to suppress dissent and he can afford to develop nuclear weapons. Why wouldn't he be smiling?
In today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman again reminds us that we are Ahmadinejads enablers, and that . . ."the one thing we could do, without firing a shot, that would truly weaken the Iranian theocrats and force them to unshackle their people . . . is to end our addiction to the oil that funds Iran’s Islamic dictatorship. Launching a real Green Revolution in America," he writes, "would be the best way to support the “Green Revolution” in Iran.."
Friedman's column, "The Green Revolution(s)," is well worth reading. He points out that we could effect change in Iran and other petro-dictatorships simply by cutting our oil use. And the way to achieve that, he says, is to impose ". . . an immediate “Freedom Tax” of $1 a gallon on gasoline — with rebates to the poor and elderly — [It] would be a triple positive: It would stimulate more investment in renewable energy now; it would stimulate more consumer demand for the energy-efficient vehicles that the reborn General Motors and Chrysler are supposed to make; and, it would reduce our oil imports in a way that would surely affect the global price and weaken every petro-dictator."
When gas gas hit $4.00 a gallon, Americans immediately reacted by using less of it. Keeping gas prices high is the smartest thing we could possibly do. This is how we can bring Iran into line, speed the development of clean energy, save the auto industry, and slow global warming. It's the bargain of the century.
