Time to Get Over Those Oil `Dependency’ Blues

Boycotting oil from a specific country doesn’t harm it enough to provoke policy changes. Reducing U.S. demand, whether through boycotts or use of hybrid technology, won’t significantly reduce world energy demand. The Iranians can just sell their oil to somebody else. It can make just as much money selling oil to Japan as it would to us. In fact, despite the U.S. import ban, Iran was the world’s fourth-largest net oil exporter in 2004.

If we want to take money away from countries that support terrorism, we must try something much bigger. For example, the U.S. could say it won’t allow individuals or firms that do business with Iran to do any business with the U.S. That would force people to choose between the U.S., which has the world’s largest economy, or Iran, which in 2005 had gross domestic product of $195 billion, or about the same as Detroit. Most everyone would choose the U.S., and Iran would be headed for economic misery.

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