European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 5, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes saturday april 5, 1986 William Safire an open Sheik s though is on America s Oil Binge what a foolish and self defeating Binge the West is on thanks to my temporary discomfiture. A barrel of Oil which peaked at $36 in the heyday of the Cartel now Sells for a third of that. If the decline continues the Price considering 15 years of inflation will approach that of the Days before the Shah of Iran came to us with his magnificent idea of shifting the worlds economic Power from the West to open. And so the West is now gloating in its return to Domi Nance. The Stock Market investor asks How High is High our Oil Market must respond How Low is Low that answering question makes sense cheapening Energy holds Down inflation punctures the balloon of inflationary expectations enables Central Banks to ease inter est rates and booms America s Boom. America s executives think themselves geniuses be cause the $25-a-barrel drop saves them a Hundred billion a year in finance charges on corporate debt. They spin up on their glorious Circle generating expansion funds with out borrowing and they no longer need to borrow Money to buy Back their own depressed Stock. That causes Banks to make Money Ever cheaper. America s Geo politicians preen at the loss in hard cur Rency to the soviet Union the largest exporter of Oil and the Hawks in Washington Delight at the anger building in the Warsaw pact As the russians Force their european clients to pay double the world Price. America s Consumers the most self deluding fools of All Are happily splashing about in what they Call a world awash in Oil buying bigger cars and abandon ing All conservation of heat. Low prices have caused american Oil exploration to Stop and the nation s dependence on imports to increase. Enjoy your Little rebound my Western friends. Revel in your painless Irr dentistry persuade yourselves that the Law of  demand has broken the hold of those arrogant and greedy sheiks. Your children will pay for your smugness and your profligacy. 1 have a much greater Challenge at the moment than gaining control of open production and then raising prices. On the contrary my strategy is to produce and produce until the Low prices bankrupt Iran. My orders could not be More Clear at All costs break Iran. The persian menace is the single overriding threat to the entire Arab world. Unless the Ayatollah s Funda mentalist imperialism is contained Iraq will lose its War Kuwait will fall and the kingdom will follow. With our very survival at stake we Are willing to suffer these falling prices because we know we Are starving Iran s War machine. Pouring Money into Iraq did not Vork denying Oil Money to Iran is our last Hope. Of course i am aware of the other benefits of our Tom Wicker and we Boih octto see Hie end of the glut it overproduction. I put our pulling Down of prices delicately As regaining Market share but what i want is the next government of Britain to learn to ally itself with open. And i am driving out the Coal and atomic Competition to Oil after alternative sources shut Down at great Cost they will not Likely get financing to trouble us in the future when prices Are again in our control. You ask me when the great american Binge will end i estimate in the Early 90s. Upward pressure could begin sooner if Kuwait is forced by concern with Iran to ally itself with the soviet Union and if libyan col. Foam mar khad Afy and Abu Nidal strike at America in a Way that causes president Reagan to retaliate by closing the Oil terminals on the Gulf of Sidra. Only one possibility has worried me the . Might impose a substantial Oil import fee. That would freeze Gas and Oil prices encourage conservation and exploration save the american Oil Industry and make it impossible for my Long Range plan to work. For a moment it appeared that a concern in Washington about the budget deficit would Combine with a plan for Oil Independence to impose the fee. But 1 am informed by one of Reagan s closest former advisers that a great relaxation has taken place that the decision is to squeeze every drop out of the Price break Bonanza and we Are Safe from Long Range planning. They Are not even filling their strategic Reserve with cheap Oil. Why do americans persist in thinking of sheiks As greedy our reach for economic Power cannot compare to the greed for popularity of their president. He intends to leave office clinging to All the benefits of an Oil Price collapse but his successor will pay heavily just As Jimmy Carter had to pay. And then my smug Western friends the last laugh will be mine. C new York times nuclear tests make terrible scenario More Likely would the United states the soviet Union and the whole world be better off today if the two super Powers had agreed to Stop nuclear testing 20 years or More ago an agreement both pledged themselves to seek up the limited test ban and nuclear non proliferation trea ties you bet they d be better off despite the specious argument of the Reagan administration and others that nuclear War is bad but nuclear weapons testing has been and might still be Good. Had the superpowers banned their own nuclear explosions Long ago for one thing other nations would be less. Tempted to develop these weapons. Forget the recently devised propaganda claim that we need to keep testing in order to make sure our warheads remain reliable. The United states never has conducted a statistically significant number of explosive proof tests and non explosive Means of testing weapons reliability Long been considered sufficient the real arguments behind this smokescreen Are that nuclear testing in the past has produced lower yield War Heads and safety devices that prevent unauthorized use of nuclear weapons and that nuclear testing in the future might develop better weapons like the nuclear powered j Ray laser needed for president Reagan s Star wars Ariti missile defense. The first Point is indefensible. Safety devices need not be and usually Haven t been part of warheads they can be installed in the launching system and Don t depend upon explosive nuclear testing for their development or improvement. And while it s True that testing has resulted in lower yield warheads these improved devices actually make modern first strike weapons possible even More Likely. Since the limited test ban treaty of 1963, 28 new types of nuclear warheads have been developed. All required explosive testing. For the worst example missiles with multiple independently targeted warheads could not have been developed and deployed had All nuclear testing been halted in 1963 or thereabouts the necessary types of warheads were not then available. Such missiles threaten global stability in two ways. They mean an enemy can launch More warheads on fewer missiles but each of his missiles and each of yours also is a More tempting target bearing More War Heads that could be destroyed in a first strike. The newer Low yield warheads also May be More accurately aimed. Such a warhead might blow up Only part rather than All of new York but increased accuracy Means that the warhead is More Likely to be launched because it can be aimed at a specific military target. Each Side therefore has to worry More that the other might try with such accurate warheads to destroy its retaliatory missiles with a first strike. This counterforce capability would t exist had nuclear testing been halted two decades ago. As for the a Ray laser not Only could it be a threaten ing offensive weapon even if developed for strategic de sense but if the necessary nuclear explosive devices Are not deployed in space As some administration officials have promised they won t be the laser would be of limited effectiveness for missile defense. Besides if you Don t need the defense you Don t need the a Ray laser to be part of it. To claim the necessity for nuclear tests in order to develop such a device is to argue for testing in Pursuit of a strategic defense that May not work will Cost $300 billion or More and threatens a defensive As Well As an expanded offensive arms race for which no one has conclusively demonstrated the necessity. Actually continued nuclear testing can have no purpose but to develop More and improved nuclear weapons. But such weapons Are needed not to improve deterrence but Only if one Side or the other seeks decisive nuclear superiority which the history of the arms race shows to be a costly and dangerous illusion or pursues an enhanced War fighting capacity the supposed ability to fight and win a limited nuclear War. But no matter How surgical or clean the weapons one Side might launch in an Effort at limited War there d be no guarantee that the responding weapons would not be More destructive and no Way to Stop the nuclear escalation that strategic experts on both sides believe would follow. Continued testing Only makes that terrible scenario More Likely to become reality. C new York times the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to be considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the United state government