We are in the middle of a war we are helping to finance.

Max Boot writes:

My associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, Ian Cornwall, calculates that if oil averages $71 a barrel this year, 10 autocracies stand to make about $500 billion more than in 2003, when oil was at $27. This windfall helps to squelch liberal forces and entrench noxious dictators in such oil producers as Russia (which stands to make $115 billion more this year than in 2003) and Venezuela ($36 billion). Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez can buy off their publics with generous subsidies and ignore Western pressure while sabotaging democratic developments from Central America to Central Asia.

The"dictatorship dividend" also subsidizes Sudan's ethnic cleansing (it stands to earn $4.7 billion more this year than in 2003), Iran's development of nuclear weapons ($45 billion) and Saudi Arabia's proselytization for Wahhabi fundamentalism ($149 billion). Even in such close American allies as Kuwait ($35 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($36 billion), odds are that some of the extra lucre will find its way into the pockets of terrorists.

The Saudi energy minister justifiably mocks the idea of a peaceful American solution. He is referring to Tom Friedman's notion of a gas tax and his call to create a third party to implement the policy. O.K., I know it is ridiculous.

So what is to be done? Instapundit ruminates about the morality and practicalities involved in taking over the oil fields. Yes, it is another pipe dream.

But keep hope alive. We will not destroy the bad guys but, Inshaala (if God wills), they will self destruct. They always do.