For Sanctions to Work, the US Needs to Get off its Green Horse (Temporarily)
Can Ukrainian resistance and Western sanctions stop Putin? Perhaps not while Putin profits more than a billion each day selling hydrocarbons.
Among countless others, Fareed Zakaria is acutely aware and concerned the resistance and counter-pressure against Putin may fail:
His suggested solution? Drive hydrocarbon pricing way down, if only temporarily.
Unfortunately, according to him, American production is expanding as fast as it can -- we can't do it ourselves. Instead, we must reach out to Saudi Arabia. Get them to increase production.
Driving hydrocarbon pricing way down is indeed the solution. But not by persuading Saudi Arabia to do it for us. We can't persuade Saudi Arabia. For several reasons they didn't even answer the phone when we called on them. Hence, the Biden administration has already reached out to Venezuela and Iran as well. Seems they won't be helping against Putin anytime soon either. Not at the moment, thanks so much. Perhaps when they stop chanting "Death to America" in Iran. Or when they stop aligning their own military ambitions with Putin as one of his closest allies. It's at least conceivable, if not possible.
Only we in North America can drive hydrocarbon pricing down sharply albeit temporarily. We can do so easily by starting production on a second oil glut. But for the Biden administration we would have started doing so long before gas prices breached $100 / barrel. The Biden administration, however, can't seem to stop opposing and undermining North American production -- be it via aborting Keystone or blocking public lands drilling permits availability. Despite even a June 15, 2021 legal injunction against President Biden's freeze on new public lands drilling auctions).
The Biden administration makes no secret of its opposition to North American hydrocarbon production. Jen Psaki proudly reiterated it on April 18, 2022:
Under normal circumstances it might make some sense for President Biden to refuse dismounting his green horse even temporarily. Under our current circumstances though? President Biden's refusals rival China's Zero Covid policy -- even Putin's seemingly insane attempts to genocide Ukraine. Not quite -- but almost.
Just about. For what sense is there in supporting Ukraine to the tune of a billion every other week -- while refusing to block Putin's daily billion from hydrocarbon profiteering? What sense is there in hydrocarbon starving the West while globalism teeters in the crosshairs between Covid recovery and Putin's potentially apocalyptic violence? Despite Biden's genuine efforts to bolster Ukraine, his refusal to dismount his green horse however temporarily is vastly more damaging. It amounts to collaborating with Putin. How can he fail to understand that, should Putin manage to emerge triumphal, the green horse Biden refuses to temporarily dismount will be unceremoniously shot and dumped into mass unmarked graves along with Ukrainian identity and all our besieged Western values?
It might even be possible for Biden to keep one foot in the saddle. To not even fully dismount, however temporarily. Here's why.
The 2014-15 oil glut was devastatingly traumatic for OPEC+. It culminated, briefly, in oil pricing at negative values. That's what the mere dread of supply outstripping demand for some sustained period can accomplish. Since hydrocarbon storage space is finite, hydrocarbon storage costs can start rising as soon as fears are sparked that storage may eventually be overwhelmed. Like that of any other commodity, hydrocarbon values hinge on perceptions of either relative scarcity -- or abundance. Thus, if only the Biden administration can manage to alter just that perception -- it might not prove necessarily to entirely dismount the green horse. However temporarily.
Jen Psaki is great at her job. Maybe she'd be up to the challenge if Biden were to really commit to helping Ukraine. To helping Americans at the pumps at least until Covid recovery can get going. To helping Europe, especially Germany, get behind Ukraine—and get off the hydrocarbon barrel Putin has them over. Since Germany rightly fears the barrel Putin has it over may prove empty.
Psaki can do it. Just imagine.
"Drill baby, drill," she says with a tight, fleeting, subtle, seductively sardonic smile.
Segueing to the camera she projects her curdling, ironically similar to Putin's lidless stare. "Frack you, Mr. Putin. Your days of hydrocarbon profiteering are numbered. Numbers small enough for even your generals to comprehend."
Then she turns her head a fraction to gaze not only at the eco-warriors arrayed beneath her -- but, really, at all of us everywhere concerned with saving the planet. "Please understand our priorities have not changed. But we must stop Putin first. Green horses cannot exist in any world where Putin triumphs."