Tom Friedman goes green

In his NY Times column of 2/13/05, Thomas Friedman goes green in arguing that we are failing to control the mullahs of Iran by allowing our energy demands to provide more cash to them from the sale of oil.

While I greatly admire much of his work, he doesn't seem firmly grounded in economics - such that the expense of developing alternatives to oil are, in and themselves, quite high and that other nations are waiting in the wings to absorb any excess in oil supply caused by a decrease in the U.S. demand (and initially they will pay less). In fact, if we raise the cost of our energy, we can actually become less competitive with countries who don't make the same switch at the same time we do.

In short, nice fantasy, Mr. Friedman. But you won't win the reality cigar.