Walking Away from the Gasoline War

July 16, 2007 – Vol.12 No.17

WALKING AWAY FROM THE GASOLINE WAR.

All the buzz in Washington is about withdrawal from Iraq. Forget about it. It’s not going to happen, soon that it is. Certainly there’s concern on Capitol Hill about the loss of life - American and Iraqi - but lawmakers are also concerned about their seats in Congress.

Democrats have to show that they’re following the will of the people who put them in the majority. Republicans fear they’ll loose even more in a little over a year.

But behind the growing call for withdrawal both parties know it would be disaster for the world. (How can they not know this?) The region would fall apart. Oil prices would skyrocket. Global economies would suffer. The US would be to blame.

Eventually, though, the US will have to withdraw or pull way back. Reality will set in.

The cost of the war is now $12 billion a month. The war isn’t in the budget but taxpayers will still have to pay.

It could be a long war. Commander of US forces General David Petraeus has said the insurgency could last decades - at least another 20 years. Voters, politicians won’t put up with the prospect of that.

Further the US is outnumbered - by huge numbers. Our relatively small population can’t possibly - even with a draft - provide enough young, strong men and women to fight there. Whereas the insurgency can draw on willing fighters from throughout the Muslim world - from a pool of perhaps hundreds of millions. As the insurgency has shown this is a war fought with people not heavy weaponry.

Some form of withdrawal or pull back will happen in the next presidency. (Bush may want to leave office with the war going. He wouldn’t want be responsible for starting and losing a war. He’ll leave the losing part for the next guy.)

If the pullout happens in the next presidency there’s still two years or so to prepare. Yet even then the pullout won’t be instantaneous. An in-depth article by the Baltimore Sun showed that the withdrawal of all men and machines will take at least 20 months. And, it will dangerous too. The insurgency will be on their heels the whole way out. (Unlike other wars there’ll be no peace treaty where everyone lays down arms.)

Given a couple of years to prepare world economies might be able to survive the bloodbath that could eventually happen throughout the region: (All the way at least to Pakistan, perhaps even further east.) Economic preparation will mean reducing consumption of oil or finding substitutes, a particular challenge in the gasoline-addicted US.

In that two years either individuals and companies in the US can find ways on there own to cut back significantly. As much as technologies like plug-in hybrids, clean diesels, or cellulosic ethanol hold promise, they’re not readily available and mass adoption is more years away than we have.

If consumers won’t or can’t do it, governments - local, state, federal - can do the job, even if it’s behind the scenes actions that don't require major legislation - only minor changes to laws.

For example:

--- Drop speed limits and enforce them, particularly on secondary roads. Let drivers adapt to other safe ways of local transport that don’t require gasoline - bicycles, low speed electric vehicles, scooters.

--- Keep Amtrak funded and let it improve services and force it to drop ticket prices. People need a low cost alternative to driving medium range distances.

--- Provide incentives or encourage the shipment of goods by energy efficient rail and barge. High speed truck transport is not necessary for all goods.

--- Build up reserve stocks of gasoline and diesel fuel.

--- Let the price of fuel climb at the pump, albeit slowly. Drivers have now adapted to $3 a gallon by driving less or buying more fuel efficient cars, without damaging the economy. Let the price go to $4 or more over the next couple of years. How do politicians do this? By ignoring calls by constituents to take action to drop prices at the pump.

--- Loosen up on the regulations that slow down or downright prohibit the importation of vehicles from the rest of the world. The world market outside the US is flooded with fuel efficient cars and trucks. Make it easier for consumers to import them. And as tough as it may be for politicians, ignore calls by US auto industry lobbyists not to do this. Slowly the surviving US car makers have begun importing more fuel efficient cars from their overseas operations. Let consumers force the issue and speed up the process.

The war in Iraq is now about the security of oil in the region. It seems ridiculous that a crash effort to wean the US from it isn’t possible. The rest of the world has built strong economies with less dependence on oil than we have. It’s time we did the same. Quickly.