President George Bush’s State of the Union confession that the United States is addicted to oil made for great headlines but the real story behind the U.S. energy security dilemma reflects two factors.

The first is an apparent unwillingness to confront and implement measures that deal effectively with the demand side of the equation – an issue that surely resonates every time a Hummer goes by and for which Bush’s call to technology as “the best way to break this addiction” seems a trope at best.

The second is on the supply side, and here the single-minded focus on the Middle East to the detriment of any articulated policy towards its most important energy suppliers – namely those in the Western Hemisphere – might not make one join the Sean Penn fan club but the gaps in logic are worrisome.

The end result is that, despite the administration’s public concern over energy security, it is difficult to see how its strategy will deliver such security. In the meantime, relieved consumers vote with their pocketbooks and it is entirely possible that reassuring American consumers with lower prices has been the only guiding principle for that strategy.

Putting OPEC into perspective

When it comes to OPEC, the key players to the U.S. are really Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Not surprisingly, these two countries have often been singled out for special attention by the U.S. administration but this muddles the picture. As a target for American rhetoric, OPEC has proven to be elusive. Although some OPEC members do have common strategies that tie oil production to anti-Americanism, forging a comprehensive foreign policy towards the group on this basis is likely to be short of impossible.

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