To continue with a theme from yesterday, the Center for American Progress' Rebecca Lefton and Daniel Weiss have issued a report, with the map above, showing American oil imports from "dangerous and unstable countries." The authors argue that American oil consumption helps to prop up unfriendly or even dangerous regimes and that it's time to invest that money on renewable sources at home.
Let's imagine that the authors get their wish and the U.S. finds a way to end its reliance on oil as a fuel (presumably we'd still need oil to lubricate machinery and as a feed stock for chemicals, but let's assume we can meet that need indigenously). What happens to the various "dangerous and unstable" countries once we deprive them of their major revenue source? Maybe they respond by adopting liberalizing reforms. Or maybe these nations join Yemen on the list of states teetering on the verge of collapse. And how secure would that make the U.S.?
I do think it would make more sense for the U.S. to invest its time, attention and resources in developing a less oil-intensive economy rather than trying to finesse the politics of the Middle East. At a minimum, such a development would help insulate our economy from major price swings and give us strategic resilience in the face oil-dependent powers. If such a move precipitates the collapse of various basket-case states, then that's a problem, but not necessarily an American problem. That's my view at least, but I was very much under the impression that the Center for American Progress believed that failed states represent a danger to the United States. I'm not clear why they'd want to produce more of them.
[Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan]