AN OILY QUAGMIRE

Washington is warning Americans that drug addicts help support terrorists.
But what about the nation's other habit -- cheap oil?

Buy drugs, support terrorism. That was the unsubtle message from federal
drug policy officials as they launched a multi-million dollar advertising
campaign during Sunday's Super Bowl.

Certainly, they have some evidence on their side. Terrorist groups from
southeast Asia to South America are in the drug trafficking business. But
in the meantime, another hazardous American addiction goes unchallenged. No
crusade has been launched against a national dependency that delivers
billions of dollars each year to foreign powers whose support for terror is
far from fanciful: Oil.

For more than half a century, the US has been beholden to the dictatorships
of the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, which controls more than a
quarter of the world's known oil reserves. The Saudi patriarchate financed
the Taliban, the madrassas that educated Taliban fighters in Afghanistan
and Pakistan, and (when convenient) Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

This connection was documented and declared long before the Taliban became
America's villains of choice. But that link never dissuaded the US from
seeking Saudi oil. George Bush I's ample business alliances with Saudi
rulers have been remunerative for the Bush family and former Bush I
officials James Baker and Frank Carlucci, but not terribly useful for
protecting America from attacks by Saudi citizens with passports and
box-cutters.

Now, the Office of National Drug Control Policy hopes to convince
drug-addicted Americans to kick their habits for patriotism's sake. What
about that other habit? Nobody in Washington is suggesting we give up
buying gas. The liberal leadership is willing to challenge drilling in the
Alaskan wilderness, which would be a transparent subsidy to the
administration's oil pals, but seems afraid to question our larger
petrodependence.

Oil, and America's unending appetite for it, ushered in the death squads of
al Qaeda. Oil lubricated the US's disastrous quarter-century-long support
for the Shah of Iran -- another invitation to Islamic fundamentalism, as it
turned out. Oil floated, and continues to float, the brutal regime of
Saddam Hussein.

Access to oil trumps democratic values and human rights at every turn. For
half a century, purported realists in Washington have thought nothing of
greasing the palms of Saudi princes in exchange for the favor of permitting
us (and, to an even greater extent, the Japanese and the Europeans) to buy
their oil.

Some realism.

For their part, the Saudis are now wondering aloud whether an American base
in their territory is worth all the trouble. Possibly they fear the
political price is rising. The Saudi princes, evidently hoping to defuse a
native opposition that finds them insufficiently pure, are growing restive
about the very American base that so exercises bin Laden and his supporters.

Some Democratic Senators are wising up to the fact that the Saudis have us
over a barrel, and while they are reluctant to suggest anything that would
answer an al Qaeda demand, they have trial-ballooned the message that this
base might be rather more trouble than it's worth. Not coincidentally, we
have become aware of a fervent American interest in a substitute oil
source: Central Asia.

This prospect has already led to an American base in Uzbekistan and plans
for more, along with US support for brutal dictatorships in several of the
former Soviet states, repressive regimes whose anti-Islamic policies stand
to produce future militants for future bin Ladens.

The economic foundation of this myopia, this heap of bad bargains, is of
course the petroleum fixation of a society of SUV patriots. This fixation
is not only economic but cultural. Easy oil is an American way of life. Big
companies and little folks alike take for granted their God-given right to
low prices at the pump. When those prices rise, Americans of all political
stripes panic, without giving much thought to where the stuff comes from.

While our national oil fix appears fundamental, it would be truer to say
that it is simply undiscussed.

The barking heads of the punditocracy do not inquire of America's
potentates as to why the fixation makes sense. They do not press them on
crash research programs to develop alternatives. Even amid the cascading
Enron scandal, they do not connect the dots to link the national
petrofixation, global warming, and the interests of the oil companies that
own this administration.

They are, well, petrified.

There is some reason for hope, though. When the issue is adequately
explained, Americans appear willing to fund alternatives to oil. In
November, after a smart environmentalist campaign, San Francisco passed two
ballot measures committing the city to use solar and wind power for public
buildings and to promote these renewable energies in homes and businesses
as well. Such measures belong on the agendas of city councils all over the
country. They belong in state referenda and legislative initiatives. Energy
efficiencies of the sort already in widespread use in Europe demand
widespread use in the US as well, whatever Dick Cheney may think.

It's too much to hope that, in the twilight of Enron, sun-drenched Houston
might listen up. But sooner or later, the only way out of our oily
addiction is with such elemental forces as light and wind. Kicking bad
habits is patriotic -- but don't expect the oil dealers in Washington to
proclaim the virtues of just saying no.