US President George W. Bush, in his State of the Union address on 1 February, announces that the US is ‘‘addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.’’ And it will reduce massive 75% of oil imports from that ‘‘unstable Middle East’’ by 2025. But the amount of petroleum exported from the Middle East to the US is only 13% - 8% from Saudi Arabia, 3% Iraq and 1.3% Kuwait. Quite a huge ambition!
It is still a great idea not to depend petroleum on the Middle East because of the soaring prices after the US invasion of Iraq. The country, which was ‘‘liberalised’’ and gifted a ‘‘democracy’’, is currently so unstable that it is too uncertain to depend oil there. Suicide bombings and kidnappings frequently have occured in spite of having a national army and police trained by ‘‘highly motivated’’ US troops.
Full speech is available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4668628.stm
Photo is from the BBC website.
