Fuel for the 21st Century

Thomas Friedman's editorial in NYT:

Fly  Me To The Moon

...suggests a "win-win-win-win-win" proposition:

If President Bush is looking for a legacy, I have just the one for him - a national science project that would be our generation's moon shot: a crash science initiative for alternative energy and conservation to make America energy-independent in 10 years. Imagine if every American kid, in every school, were galvanized around such a vision. Ah, you say, nice idea, Friedman, but what does it have to do with your subject - foreign policy?

Everything! You give me an America that is energy-independent and I will give you sharply reduced oil revenues for the worst governments in the world. I will give you political reform from Moscow to Riyadh to Tehran. Yes, deprive these regimes of the huge oil windfalls on which they depend and you will force them to reform by having to tap their people instead of oil wells. These regimes won't change when we tell them they should. They will change only when they tell themselves they must.

This idea has tons of merit.  The mind reels.

It is an idea, however, which could be characterized as "reality-based".  It will probably live its entire, short life on the editorial page, but make a mental note of it for 2008.