I intended to take a break from beating on my reduce oil consumption/reduce terrorism/save Israel/help the environment drum. Actually, I really wanted to follow up my last blog on the Dalai Lama with another one.

I attended his Gold Medal Gala sponsored by International Campaign for Tibet. I was impressed with the Jewish representation there, especially Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Cal.), who is an Hungarian Holocaust survivor. Jews, of all people, should be leading the international effort to allow Tibetans religious freedom in their homeland.

But on the way to writing about that, too many other things have happened:
•      Turkey’s army and Iraqi-based Kurds fighting for an independent Kurdistan began a dangerous build up to war;
•      An analysis came out that the Iraqi war will cost the U.S. $2.4 trillion;
•      A defiant Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iran;
•      The Bush administration imposed additional sanctions on Iran;
•      Oil futures hit $90 a barrel;
•      Vice President Dick Cheney gave signals the U.S. may bomb Iranian targets before the Bush-Cheney administration leaves office.

Where to start? While I’m in favor of taking tough measures to keep Iran from going nuclear, I’m getting tired of Mr. Bush’s same two policies – war and economic sanctions.

Ironically, now that we impose additional sanctions on Iran, oil prices are surging, giving the Iranians an even larger war chest to destroy Israel and target other U.S. friends. And, we’ve seen what a mess we’ve created in Iraq. It’s not enough that we caught between flying bullets in an Iraqi civil war, but now we’re watching as the war is moving across the Turkish and Iranian borders. Clearly, a military strategy is not working. There’s no real democracy in Iraq and we can’t seem to stabilize the Mideast oil supplies.

I don’t mind carrying a big stick. But, we need other approaches to get oil below $90 a barrel. What if we invested a fraction of that on creating an engine that didn’t run on oil? It worked for John F. Kennedy.

If we could do that, I believe we would bring all of Israelis enemies to their knees and save the polar bears at the same time. It’s a solution even the Dalai Lama would approve.