The National Review’s Rich Lowry calls for the breakup of OPEC, which he suggests might be a blow against terrorism itself:

An increase in the price of oil from, say, $10 a barrel to $30 transfers tens of billions annually from the American economy to oil sheiks. The sheiks, in turn, spend the money both on their lavish corruption, thus indirectly fostering resentment and Islamic radicalism, and on buying off their militant critics, thus directly fostering resentment and Islamic radicalism.

OPEC’s threat is not, as is widely thought, that it might cut off oil to the West. As the Cato Institute’s Jerry Taylor tirelessly argues, this is essentially impossible. Although OPEC may be able to sell oil that would have been sold to the U.S. to someone else, there’s nothing stopping that third party from reselling it to the U.S., which is what happened during the 1973 embargo.

The problem with OPEC is that it enriches what are to varying degrees nasty, undemocratic, and anti-American regimes, from Iran to Venezuela, from Libya to the mother of all contemptible oil states, Saudi Arabia.

And, of course, Iraq. Oil is always a dictator’s best friend, and Saddam is no exception.

What’s the best way, in Lowry’s view, to go about devestating the OPEC cartel? You guessed it: “Toppling Saddam and installing a pro-Western regime outside of OPEC.”

Yet another reason to take the war to Iraq?

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