While I appreciate Iain’s comments in the main, I can’t help but play Devil’s Advocate.

His response to Cliff May’s point about how much the U. S. military spends to defend flows of Middle East oil — “They should pay their own way” – begs the question about the feasibility of strict libertarianism as applied to foreign policy. In principle, I can agree — but this is as politically unrealistic as anything the flex-fuel crowd has proposed.

When not everyone in the world is a libertarian, the world gets dangerous for libertarians. The U.S. couldn’t wait for the profit motive to inspire the development of ICBMs, because our Soviet friends were unlikely to wait for such inspiration. Ditto for Sputnik, Robert Zubrin might chime in.

Cliff May might well retort: Sure, if the Middle East protected oil flows to the West on their own dime, we wouldn’t need to bother with alcohol fuels. “Before that event, it is premature.”