By Douglas V. Gibbs
The global position of wealth of the countries in the Middle East, aside from Israel, comes from oil. They have no viable industry aside from oil that would give them the wealth and power that Islamic nations in that part of the world possess. If we wish to defeat hard-line Islam, the way to do it is to take away the foundation of their power – their oil-fueled wealth.
Iran, a non-Arab Islamic nation, has been at war with the United States for 47 years, and President Donald Trump is the first Commander in Chief to take the war seriously and take actions to defend not only America, but the world, from the belligerence that is coming out of Iran – especially as the Islamic state sought to establish itself as a nuclear power. During Operation Epic Fury, Iran confirmed they were capable of things that Trump warned about. As he claimed, Iran has/had the capabilities of missile attacks that could reach Europe, of which they gave us proof of when they launched a missile at Diego Garcia. Someday, if left to their own devices, Iran would have eventually procured the ability to launch a nuclear strike against European cities, and maybe even the United States. President Trump drew a line in the sand, and then backed it up with an attack to stop Iran from ever having nuclear weapons.
The decision to move against Iran carried with it a certain amount of uncertainty not because of America’s actions (it was a necessary move when it came to Iran’s nuclear aspirations, while also sticking another stick in the spokes of China’s worldwide influence and their own need for oil), but because of the hard-line Muslim leadership in Iran. They lie. They deceive. They cannot be trusted. And that is the reason Trump has been having so much difficulty getting Iran to agree to a reasonable deal.
Meanwhile, in the United States, Trump’s political opponents are hitting the President from behind, hammering the administration about gas price concerns, claiming he lied about not wanting anymore forever wars, and promising a recession is on the horizon if this operation in Iran continues.
I had a meeting with a longtime friend of mine a few weeks ago. He was raised in Iran, and moved to America as a young man in 1982 (just a few years after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 that launched Iran away from its position as an ally of the United States). He said that the problem with Trump’s operation in Iran is that he is being too soft. My friend explained that Islam cannot be negotiated with. They will draw this out because they are simply waiting for Trump’s opponents to get him to back off, or for his term to end. They are simply waiting him out, and they believe in an ideology that aims to someday eradicate Israel and the United States from the face of the Earth. They are willing to play the long game to make it happen. They cannot be trusted, so the only way to defeat them is to kill the entire hard-line Islamic leadership of Iran.
While some commentators have stated that the best way to solve the Middle East problem is to leave the region completely, and become completely energy dependent, I believe that a full departure from the Middle East is too drastic of a move. I am not arguing that we should not “drill-baby-drill.” I am also not arguing that we should have a large number of bases in the area. I think that American oil production is the most important key component in the scenario. If you take money away from the Muslim nations in the Middle East, the result is that you send those Islamic oil tycoons back in time to the age of when they were nomads in the desert without any wealth or power to push their destructive ideology. We also need to keep in mind that our ally, Israel, remains in the Middle East, and it is not in our best interest to abandon them.
Israel is surrounded by the enemy. Islam aims to someday eradicate Israel, and kill every Jew on the planet. Heck, they want to eradicate the United States and Western Civilization as a whole, as well. So, our presence in the Middle East is crucial. But, at the same time, we can take the wealth and power from the pockets of Islam with massive domestic oil production. It’s a free market way to defeat hard-line Islam. Succeed with basic economics, and the enemy will falter. Oil is a global industry. If we are flooding the market with American oil the concept of supply-and-demand kicks in, and it will push down prices, and reduce the amount of oil the Middle East (and Russia) is able to sell. With reduced sales and reduced prices, Islam can no longer fund its warfare against Israel and terrorism against the rest of the world, and Russia can no longer fund its war with Ukraine.
Islam will not go away. Its invasion in Europe and other parts of the world needs to be faced with force. We need to have the resolve to stand against the very same kind of tyranny that we were willing to fight world wars against a hundred years ago. But, it doesn’t have to necessarily be resolved through military conflict beyond what’s going on in Iran. A large part of the problem can be dealt with through America’s determination to become energy independent. That doesn’t necessarily mean creating a kind of energy isolationism. It simply means taking the lead in an industry the Middle East has dominated since the need for oil first emerged.
The move toward defanging our enemies began with Venezuela and its enormous reserves. And now the game is being played out over the skies of Iran and in the Strait of Hormuz. The collective result is a reshuffling of U.S. energy access, and a reduction of energy access for China.
Among the largest difficulties we face, however, does not revolve around the Strait of Hormuz, or China, but here in America. On the West Coast and in New York there is a lot of oil and gas we could be accessing. But, the leftwing politics of the regions have put a plug on production. In Oregon and Washington all refineries are gone, and California is spiraling in that direction. It’s an ideological set of decisions that are bankrupting those states, and is standing in the way of America achieving much of the goals the country would like to achieve.
While President Trump is making advancements toward energy independence, what if the next administration pulls what Biden did and outlaws much of our domestic energy production? A hard left turn in policy will tank the energy independence we’re building toward, and erase all of the advancements both domestically and around the world that have been achieved by the Trump administration – losses that could not only be costly when it comes to money and energy, but place the world in a position like it was before with dangerous regimes pushing the world to the brink.
The left doesn’t care about energy if it doesn’t help their narrative. They are led by the nose by radical members of their party, from environmentalists to communists, leaving plenty of room to place obstacles against energy independence and create a more dangerous world. If the leftist progressive commie Democrats every achieve power again, they will renew state-sponsored climate activism, and put in place policies designed to resume same Middle East mayhem that the Iranians are no patiently attempting to wait for.
It has become a do-or-die situation. Trump and his allies must accomplish true U.S. energy independence now and take out of commission international enemies who are determined to eradicate liberty around the globe. In the next two years we need to release domestic drilling, reduce regulations, increase the number of rigs, and complete proposed pipelines and refinery expansions. I believe we may truly be in a now-or-never position. We need to become so prosperous that nobody will even consider handing the reins back to the Democrats. We need to make sure through success that the Democratic Party goes the way of the Whigs and the Federalist Party. Otherwise, they will triple down, and employ every weapon they can imagine to make sure they never lose power again.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
