No more oil for you! (originally published August 11, 2005)

With the successful buy out of Unocol to Chevron instead of China's Cnooc, the congress has effectively further sent us in the direction of a Shakespearean play. We are becoming so scared of the threat China could pose as a super power that our reactions might just make our worst fears a reality. We are pushing China away and turning them into an opposing force instead of an ally with each side relying on the other. China will continue to look for oil and they are going to get it. They've already secured huge amounts of natural gas in a 20 year deal with Australia and their investments in African oil are growing and
Then comes the big problem. Oil, all over the world, exists in a free market economy. It goes to the highest bidder. And that is how it should be. But that could not be the case for long. Imagine a day when the majority of oil, owned by Islamic countries, is sold almost exclusivly to countries other than America. A reverse-embargo where Iraq (if it ever becomes a controlled state), Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc... all just turn down American offers and sell to China who could, within a matter of a decade, buy all the oil the middle East has to sell. There are other sources, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. the new arctic passage looks promising, Russia, but the main problem is not where we'll get our oil from, it's a middle east no longer reliant on a country that prefers, and has come to insist on, democracies. And more importantly no longer reliant on us, period. Free to declare publicly what the people have been saying for decades, "death to America."
We're losing our grip on the world because a super power is only as strong as the next strongest country is weak. A strong America, a new super power in the east, and perhaps an EU that acts as one nation. Will we all go our separate ways as protectionists? What will happen to the third world now? And what would a middle east, free to determine it's own destiny, no longer relyant on a demanding nation builder, do? More dicatorships? More Ayatollas? One Islamic Nation? A huge Sunni/Shiite civil war? 5 Kurdistans? Can we all truly co-exist with so much power in so many hands? The boarders on my board Risk board game version World War III are beginning to take shape.