Earlier quoted context omitted.
"And the fact is he's right. The absolute best thing for the ordinary arab people that the USA and all the other oil importers could do is immediately stop buying oil. And the unpleasant truth is that every dollar you spend at the petrol pump is indeed a vote in support of those despicable regimes." For the moment put countries in the Middle East aside and think about car companies during this recession. When people…
Take your argument to its logical conclusion and you reach the perverse notion that it's the USA's, and the rest of the world's, moral obligation to pump money into the region to prevent war. The oil is not even a factor, and will run out eventually anyway. Isn't this imperialist thinking of the very worst type? Like in all things I defer to the superior words of the masters: "It is as you say, of course," Shoum said…
If the world were black and white and the only choices were stop buying oil completely or continue the way we currently do things that would be true. But the world isn't like that.
Contrary to what Political Pundits might say our leaders really aren't idiots. For several decades now we've been pursuing alternate fuel sources (which should start to slowly reduce the amount of oil we purchase) while denouncing foreign oil use (which should subtlety undermine regimes that have no real plan beyond "make money off oil").
Again history provides the perfect model here. The U.S. won the cold war not by drastic actions but by slowly undermining the USSR's political system with political rhetoric while doing everything we could to create an economic environment that endorsed the ideals we hoped they would emulate