Addicted to Oil

The obligation of the U.S., as a leader of the free world, is to change the approach, to rise above the enormous economic interests of giant American petroleum corporations and declare the vision of ran end to the dependence on oil that pollutes humankind and jeopardizes its security.

In 1879, the first combustion engine was blueprinted. The interesting detail is that 40 years earlier, the electric motor was invented. In 1904, one-third of all the automobiles in Chicago, Boston and New York were electric and totally non-polluting. The future of electric and non-polluting vehicles looked promising until huge oil reserves in Texas were discovered.

As a result, the price of gasoline wheels dropped. The electric car became a dying species, until its production was stopped completely in 1935. In 2011, global oil consumption has been at about 88 million barrels a day. The U.S. is the largest oil consumer on the planet, wasting 25 percent of the global oil consumption, whereas its population is only around 5 percent of the world's. Approximately two-thirds of U.S. oil consumption goes to transportation needs. There’s no other way to describe this utilization pattern except for addiction and ultimate petroleum enslavement.

Anyone who understands these figures also realizes that the absolute oil dependence is that which spearheads and dictates the foreign and security policy of the world’s greatest superpower in the last 100 years. The [political] shortsightedness, then, has charged a heavy death toll affecting billions of people around the globe. It isn't a secret that practically all global terror is funded by the countries of the Muslim world. There exist two key elements shared by these states sponsoring terrorism: They are oil-rich and governed by dictatorship regimes.

In his book “The Case for Democracy,” Natan Sharansky* explains that an integral part of the survival capacity of the dictatorship’s rule is the existence of an “external enemy” that would attract hatred to itself and serve ostensibly as a source of the real problems that the citizens of those dictatorial states suffer from. George Orwell in his novel “1984” did amazingly well in expressing this point.

For decades [already], the Western world, with the U.S. at the head, has exerted colossal efforts to end the Israeli-Arab conflict. Has anybody asked himself why these attempts are failing time after time? Is this really about a border conflict if the territory of the State of Israel is less than 1 percent of the whole of the Middle East? The conflict with the Islamic world is a clash between the culture that sanctifies individual liberties and progress — and the culture that hallows the barbarism of terror, indiscriminate mass murder and intolerance of others. As long as Islam holds to this radical approach, there’s no chance for a true peace to prevail.

Imagine what the world would look like today had the U.S. in 1912, out of long-term strategic vision and acumen, been cherishing and building up the electric autos. It stands to reason that the battery that is today lasts solely for 160 km would be sufficient for at least 1000 km before recharging, and that a billion cars running across the globe in 2011 would be electric and clean of ecological contamination. But humanity would gain one more thing: an Islamic world, however extreme, whose capabilities of financing global terror are negligible and which is unable to acquire and develop technologies of mass destruction.

The duty of the United States, as the leader of the free world, is to shift the approach, to override the immense economic interests of the American oil mega-corporations and declare its intention to abandon the dependence on petroleum that poisons humankind and threatens its security. Even with a hundred years lost, it’s still not too late.

In parallel, the State of Israel and the free world must focus efforts on development and promotion of alternative clean energies that would shake off the dependence on Islamic oil and require the Muslim countries to open their economies to the world — something that would eventually lead to advanced economy management inevitably based on democratization. When we reach this state of affairs, I believe that, along with a world of pure air free of ecological pollution, a way to a genuine peace will be paved.

The author is a deputy minister in charge of promotion of young people, students and women in the Prime Minister’s Office.

*A former Soviet refusenik and prisoner, Israeli politician, human rights activist and author.