LET EUROPE SECURE ITS OWN OIL SUPPLIES

Excerpt below from American Thinker. Note that with Western hemisphere oil -- from Mexico, Venezuela, Alaska etc., the USA does not really need Arab oil. Most Alaskan oil goes in fact to Japan

Europe gets forty percent of its oil through the Persian Gulf. But by an accident of history (and civilized policy -- ours, that is) it is the United States that guards the Gulf from madmen like Ahmadinejad. Well, so be it. We gain from world peace and free trade, and it is better to keep the maniacs far away from our shores.

But it is now way past time for Europe to step up to the plate again. They have the economic might, the population, the brains -- but not the guts -- to behave as a decent actor on the world stage. And the British "hostage crisis" -- which was not a crisis at all, but a staged provocation, an invitation for the Brits to kowtow, which they did -- should spell the end of our patience.

Europe's response to Ahaminejad's game tells us all we need to know. Tony Blair tossed the hot potato to the UN, which tossed it right back again. Then he tried his good friends in the EU, and they ducked it altogether. Then, secretly, he got George W. to trade Iran's Quds thugs, who were imprisoned in Iraq for directing IED attacks on Americans, in trade for those 15 clueless Brits. Result: The West looked helpless against the ruthless blackmailers of Qom. So in the end, Europe got away again with letting Uncle Sam do it.

We can shrug off the screaming anti-American hate mongering of the media in Germany, France and (on the Left) in Britain. We can ignore the fact that Britain is selling its sovereignty to the EU, about as feckless a bunch of political con artists as ever exploited a badly indoctrinated population. What we cannot allow, over the long term, is to get stuck with all the adult work of maintaining the peace around the world, while the Europeans exploit our generosity and we pay the price in blood and treasure. It's past time for Europe to grow up.