The Coming Oil Rebound
Plus, Hillary Clinton’s new position on abortion wins a key endorsement.
By James Freeman
Photo: Getty Images
Oil prices will rise again, writes Mark Mills in today’s Journal. “Even with China’s economy slowing, global oil use will still rise by 1.3 million barrels a day this year—equal to the peak daily output of the entire Bakken Shale field. Middle-class automobile ownership in Asia is rising steadily, from today’s average of 60 to 80 cars per 1,000 residents toward the West’s 600 to 800 cars. All the fundamentals point to growing demand for oil,” writes Mr. Mills.
And when oil prices rise, U.S. “shale producers will be ready—and this is what worries OPEC, Russia and Iran. Many foreign producers need oil above $80 a barrel to balance their national budgets. Yet industry experts at RBN Energy foresee vast swaths of American shale profitable at just north of $40 a barrel. And it can come online extremely quickly,” he adds.
Hillary Clinton has recently moved to the absolutist position on abortion, writes our columnist William McGurn, and she’s been rewarded with Planned Parenthood’s “first presidential primary endorsement in its 100-year history.” The candidate has now abandoned the longtime Clinton formulation of “safe, legal and rare” in favor of “safe, legal, unlimited—and federally subsidized,” according to Mr. McGurn. In July, Mrs. Clinton said she found Planned Parenthood videos “disturbing.” But “plainly not so disturbing that she would let it get in the way of the $20 million Planned Parenthood will spend this election cycle,” he adds.
“Today’s liberal foreign policy, to adapt Churchill, is appeasement wrapped in realism inside moral equivalency,” writes the Journal’s Bret Stephens. “When it comes to Iran policy, that means believing that we have sinned at least as much against the Iranians as they have sinned against us; that our national-security interests require us to come to terms with the Iranians; and that the best way to allay the suspicions—and, over time, diminish the influence—of Iranian hard-liners is by engaging the moderates ever more closely and demonstrating ever-greater diplomatic flexibility. That’s a neat theory, proved wrong by experience at every turn.”
A Journal editorial notes “the latest in a string of Islamic State attacks in Libya since the new year.”
The country is particularly vulnerable because “the new government—the product of a shaky agreement last month between the internationally recognized government based in Tobruk and the Islamist-backed General National Congress, headquartered in Tripoli—remains a mostly notional entity.” The editorial board adds, “The West’s central interest in the region isn’t to salvage a Libyan state, assuming that’s even possible. It’s to ensure that the territory doesn’t become a haven for jihadists with access to oil revenues and a dangerous perch on the Mediterranean.”
A separate editorial shines a light on the recent disappearances and apparent abductions of authors critical of the Chinese regime. “Gui Minhai, who was completing a book on the private life of Chinese leader Xi Jinping when he vanished from his home in Thailand in October,” just showed up on Chinese state television to offer a “confession” for a dubious charge that is more than a decade old.
In more encouraging news, a new study on the 1980 Mariel boatlift from Cuba shows that the U.S. can accept a wave of refugees without destroying job opportunities for native U.S. workers.
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