Friendly vs. Unfriendly Oil

America’s economic wellbeing is at the mercy of the most thin-skinned hotheads on earth.

The tragic and outrageous assassination of American officials in Libya and the vicious attacks on U.S. embassies in (as of this writing) Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen dramatize the enormous risk of depending on petroleum from a region where a film clip can trigger riots, bloodshed, and fatalities. If this week’s turmoil proves as communicable as the rapidly tarnishing Arab Spring, Islamic militants could hammer the Great Satan by sabotaging OPEC oil fields or simply encouraging their co-religionists to leave their petroleum-sector jobs and instead rail against Western “infidels.” The mere potential of such a scenario introduces yet another element of uncertainty into a U.S. economy suffocating beneath question marks.
It would be dreadful enough if that Libyan mob murdered four American diplomats — including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, an esteemed career envoy and former Peace Corps volunteer — because U.S. bombers foolishly flattened the main mosque in Benghazi. If terrorists in Cairo invaded our embassy, ripped down the Stars and Stripes, and ran an al-Qaeda banner up the flagpole, this would be problematic enough had the CIA accidentally unleashed a drone strike on a madrassa full of ten-year-olds.

Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/316848/friendly-vs-unfriendly-oil-deroy-murdock