the 'real' energy crisis

....The real powers today are the Saudi state oil company, the Iranian state oil company, the Venezuelan state oil company, etc. Not only are governments in control of most of the world's oil and gas reserves, but increasingly they decline even to make use of the technical and management skills of Big Oil anymore.

This trend is worrisome not because we fear an axis of America haters might cut off our supply someday (these governments want our money even more than we want their oil). Rather it's worrisome because oil wealth empowers destructive elites and raises the stakes of political competition in states that, if you look closely, are all too ripe to earn the sobriquet "failing."

Down the road traveled by Saddam Hussein's Iraq now are headed Vladimir Putin's Russia, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran and perhaps the Bolivia of President-elect Evo Morales. The formula: By deliberately limiting their nations' development to the energy sectors under their control, politicians make themselves the source of all opportunity and wealth for their peoples. You heard it here: The world can expect to pay a price in instability for decades to come thanks to this phenomenon....


http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/hjenkins/?id=110007753