Let us, just for a moment, take a step back and refocus the discussion of U.S. oil dependency to include more than just Iraq or the Middle East, but also the other countries upon which U.S. energy policy relies.

Even if the wartorn Middle East produced at levels close to those desired by the United States, the region alone cannot provide enough oil to meet growing world demand. President Bush acknowledged this fact in May 2001, declaring that, in regards to U.S. energy policy, “Diversity is important not only for energy security, but also for national security.”

Washington’s plan for diversity was unveiled in the 2001 National Energy Policy, in which the White House included countries whose oil reserves would be potentially advantageous to the United States. Alarmingly, among those countries presented were: Venezuela, Russia, Colombia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, and Angola.

It is shocking that in matters of “national security”, President Bush would, at any level, rely on Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin. Sadly, there are not many alternatives. The only country with sizable reserves outside of the Middle East and the aforementioned countries is Libya.

The US must reexamine its National Energy Policy or continue to pay the price, both in dollars and in human lives, from increasingly unstable foreign oil.

Max Levine, Poland