Yetiv Publishes Fourth National Op-Ed in Past Two Months
Old Dominion University political scientist Steve Yetiv has authored his third commentary for the Christian Science Monitor in the past two months. Those articles, together with a Sunday commentary earlier this month in the Washington Post, are helping to shape the national debate on issues of United States and global energy security.
In the latest Monitor op-ed, published on Wednesday and carried on the Los Angeles Times syndicate, Yetiv notes that President Obama is being attacked for not doing enough to lower gasoline prices. Yet, Yetiv argues that many Americans fail to understand a near-maxim of gas prices: No one can really control them and certainly not an American president.
Yetiv explains why this is so. Among other things, global oil markets are too complex for any one stakeholder to manage - even for the Organization for Petroleum Exporting states. Also, energy policies face many obstacles and rarely can have any serious short-term effects on prices.
The commentary that appeared in the Sunday, April 1, Washington Post Opinions section was titled "Undue Worry About Oil and Iran." Drawing on his book "Crude Awakenings" (2004; 2010 in paperback, from Cornell University Press), Yetiv argued that conventional wisdom has the Iran situation all wrong. He explained how numerous different defenses now exist that will prevent any attack on Iran's nuclear facilities from causing a serious, lasting impact on oil prices.
On March 6, The Monitor's opinion section ran "Eight Reasons America Is Not in Decline," in which Yetiv provided an outline of his thinking as he wades into this latest book project. On March 13 came a follow-up commentary in The Monitor: "Six Reasons to Keep America as No. 1 Superpower."
Yetiv's latest commentary in Hampton Roads' Virginian-Pilot appeared on Sunday, April 22. "Presidential candidates show up way too soon" contends that news coverage of the uninspiring campaigns of Republican presidential hopefuls during the past year or so has kept media - and Americans - from focusing on more important issues, such as climate change.