It's autos and oil, folks

The Democratic politicians should know by now that we love our cars, pickups, and SUVs. We are still an oil dependent economy, folks ... just in case you haven't noticed.

This means securing access to Iraq's oil is STILL (continues to be) a strategic objective of the United States.

What is so difficult for y'all to understand? There is no way a responsible national leader can advocate pulling out of Iraq ... ending the war, yes ... because it isn't a "war" for us, it's an occupation. The "war" is the non-traditional civil war between the different factions--tribes and sheiks--of various ethnic and religious stripes ... and we are smack-dab in the middle of "it".

The thing is, we are now behaving somewhat rationally in this situation. We're aligning ourselves with the interests of our historical allies in the region ... who are (dah!) the Saudis (hence the Sunnis in Iraq.) We already have the Kurds with us, of course ... just in case anyone hasn't noticed.

What does all this mean? Well, until we stop being dependent on petroleum as a primary energy source for the masses who love their vehicles ... no Democratic politician is going to risk destabilizing the supply ... the masses really do have a short memory and are not entirely rational in the short-term ... pull our troops out and they will quickly stop worrying about war casualties and start worrying about odd and even days to buy gas. (Remember when we all blamed Jimmy Carter for THAT?)

The Energy Crisis
That week, the energy crisis that Carter had been trying to avoid since taking office had finally erupted. The OPEC oil producers' cartel had recently announced another in a series of oil price increases that sent gasoline prices skyrocketing and led to severe shortages. Long gas-pump lines and short tempers started in California and spread eastward, focusing Americans' outrage over a seemingly endless economic decline. Much of that anger was directed at the White House: Carter's approval rating had dropped to 25%, lower than Richard Nixon's during the Watergate scandal.

The president did come home, canceling his vacation and retreating to Camp David, where he started working on what would be his fifth major speech on energy. But Carter soon realized that Americans had stopped listening to him. "Jimmy had made several speeches on energy... and it just seemed to be going nowhere with the public," recalls Rosalynn Carter. "So he just said, 'I'm not going to make the speech,' and instead went to Camp David and brought in lots of people to talk about what could be done."

- from PBS, The American Experience