The symptoms of oil withdrawal

It has become fashionable in Washington to declare that the United States must end its “addiction” — as President Bush put it in his latest State of the Union speech — to foreign oil. Advocates of energy independence argue that U.S. dollars are propping up oppressive regimes in the Middle East, fomenting the rise of radical fundamentalism. Reducing our demand for oil, they say, will suck these “petrocracies” dry, paving the way for democracy.

sfgate