Turning Iraq Hawks Into Green Doves

Robert Bryce in Slate explains how neoconservatives in think tanks like Project for the New American Century have suddenly started turning green: for the simple reason that a dollar spent on Saudi oil is a dollar that might be sent to theocrats who want to spread anti-Western hate.

James Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and staunch backer of the Iraq war, now drives a 58-miles-per-gallon Toyota Prius and has two more hybrid vehicles on order. Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy and another neocon who championed the war, has been speaking regularly in Washington about fuel efficiency and plant-based bio-fuels.

...For Woolsey and Gaffney, the fact that energy efficiency and conservation might help the environment is an unintended side benefit. They want to weaken the Saudis, the Iranians, and the Syrians while also strengthening the Israelis. Whether these ends are achieved with M-16s or hybrid automobiles doesn't seem to matter to them.

Among the environmentalists, there seems to be the idea that the pencil line on the Malthusian graph can only head down. It isn't so, and stories like this one explain why.

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Addendum: That the neocons -- who essentially believed in the infinite pliability of the world to American military force -- may be coming around to the idea that the world isn't so constructed, or at least, to the idea that some alternatives are better, is also a positive.