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Next to Fall: Saudi Arabia
By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Published on DickMorris.com on March 9, 2011
We can do without Libya’s two million barrels a day of oil albeit with
significant disruptions in the global economy. But if we lose
Saudi Arabia’s nine million, we will face a global catastrophe.
And the Saudi monarchy will be the next casualty of the Middle East
revolutionary wave. The king is 86 years old and very ill.
The next two men in line are both over 80 and both sick. And,
behind those three in line are 7,000 princes, each ambitious and at war
with one another. The monarchy will not be able to buy off the
opposition for long with cash subsidies. (We are indebted to Bret
Stephens of the Wall Street Journal for these insights).
The fall of Saudi Arabia will accelerate the stagflation that will mar
the final two years of the one-term Obama Presidency.
Republicans need to ratchet up their rhetoric about new drilling for
oil. The 2008 liberal counter-argument that new drilling is not a
short term solution begs the question of why the Administration has not
used the intervening two years to effectuate the longer term solution
that it offered.
Republicans need to be more vocal in criticizing the Administration for
its defacto moratorium on off-shore drilling. Obama’s people are
so sensitive to these criticisms that they just approved the first
permit since the BP spill.
Republicans must call for reining in the regulatory hoops that on-shore
slate drilling has to go through to get approval.
Republicans should press for much, much shorter approval times for
nuclear power and a ban on EPA regulation and taxation of carbon and
coal.
The Party should attack Obama’s proposed elimination of the Oil
Depletion Allowance and other energy tax breaks and make clear that
these incentives are vital for new energy development.
Finally, the Republicans should resurrect the issue of drilling in the
ANWR Preserve in Alaska.
Sarah Palin should take the lead in this critique since energy
development is her major field of real substantive expertise. It
is an ideal opportunity for her to speak to a broader constituency.
Republicans should also propose a moratorium on the federal gas tax by
passing legislation in the House to trigger a reduction once gas goes
above $4 and total suspension if it rises above $5 per gallon.
When the price drops again below $4, the gas tax can come back on
line. Such a proposal will mean a cessation of campaign funding
from highway contractors, but so be it.
Obama’s opposition to fossil fuels is his real Achilles Heel. At some
level of gas prices, everybody is for fossil fuel development. Nobody
is “green” at $6 a gallon!
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