If we accept that Central Asian oil will not replace Persian Gulf oil, is there still a possibility that it could play an important role? Michael Klare suggests that the U.S. strategy in the region aims not to replace Persian Gulf oil, but rather to "multiply the possible sources of supply so if there's a cutoff in one, they can boost supply elsewhere."

Development outside OPEC -- the consortium of 11 oil-producing countries, seven of which are in the Mideast plus Venezuela, Indonesia, Nigeria and Algeria -- has been growing since 1988 at a rate of about 1 to 1.5 percent per year, according to Department of Energy figures. Should this trend continue, non-OPEC production would likely reach 54 million barrels per day by 2005. But even with an additional 10 million barrels a day from the Caspian basin, there still wouldn't be enough oil to satisfy present worldwide demand (73 million barrels per day), not to mention future demand, which is estimated to grow about 2 percent a year.

A combination of Caspian and other non-OPEC oil could keep the United States and Europe free from dependence on Persian Gulf oil. But add into the equation a larger set of U.S. allies -- in particular, Japan, which is the world's second-largest consumer of oil -- and reliance on the Gulf begins to look inevitable.

If oil prices spiked to $30 per barrel, solar power would be a viable alternative, says Dan Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC-Berkeley. At $50 it becomes economical to extract shale oil, says Lomborg. But the bottom line is that the Gulf states, with their ability to ramp up production to meet growing demand, will still control the market. If any other country, such as Mexico, for example, tried to cut production that would boost prices to the point that exploration of new sources of oil, or development of new sources of energy became economical, Saudi Arabia alone could make up the difference.

And if the U.S. were to withdraw from the Gulf entirely, the prospects could be disastrous in the short term, suggests Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist and New York Times columnist. "Suppose that it just so happened that all U.S. oil came from Russia and Venezuela, but that Japan got its oil from Saudi Arabia. Now suppose Osama bin Laden takes control of Saudi oil, reduces the supply, and drives prices in the Japanese market to $144. Do you really think Venezuela and Russia would keep selling us oil at $25, and not divert their supplies to the more lucrative market?" The long-term implications of such a move might make solar power more attractive, but the short term hit would be huge.

Klare puts it more directly: "The Persian Gulf sits on top of two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves," he says. "[The world] just can't do without it."

Is it possible to alter this relationship? Can the Persian Gulf stranglehold ever be broken?

Radical cuts in demand, technology breakthroughs or the discovery of another Persian Gulf could rearrange the energy chessboard. But the amount of oil still untapped in the world -- and, more to the point, still remaining in the Persian Gulf -- makes it difficult to envision a scenario in which prices will rise enough to force the development of alternatives. No one with power over the matter -- not governments that import, oil companies, or the oil exporters -- wants to see prices go too high. Politicians gain from cheap oil because expensive energy leads to recession. Oil companies and exporters fear that high prices would encourage a shift away from their underground cash crop, and since the most expensive oil to produce costs about $15 -- which is about what it would cost to extract and transport Caspian oil, according to Jaffe -- a $20 barrel of oil is still a profitable barrel.

Meanwhile, the best place to make a profit remains the Persian Gulf. It costs $15 to extract a barrel of oil in the U.S., but it costs less than $2 in Saudi Arabia.

"No one in the oil industry is talking about avoiding OPEC, because it's cheaper to get oil from the Persian Gulf," says Martha Brill Olcott, a senior analyst and Central Asian scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The Middle East has been central to U.S. strategy since the end of World War II," adds Yahya Sadowski, an energy analyst and professor at American University in Beirut. "Whoever controls the oil there, which is not just available in larger quantities but at much lower costs of production, holds the global economy by the throat."

Getting out of the Persian Gulf will ultimately take years and possibly decades, says Butler at the Energy Department. "It's considerably difficult," he says. "From the oil standpoint, our stance toward Saudi Arabia will not change because it can't."

So would we still have to engage with Saudi Arabia even if the country continues to fund and support radical movements -- like the Taliban -- that are directly opposed to the United States?

"Yes," he says. "Even then, we still have to deal with them."

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