If we didn't need their energy, then countries like Iran and Venezuela wouldn't be so bold and bad. Instead they'd just be poor and disconnected and angry.

Ah, but that tough love would work. Look at Cuba!

The NYT disappoints, as usual, with this editorial: Energy Impasse.

The logic is queer, to say the least: these countries are bad in large part because their economies are so biased toward energy exports (true); that bias gives rise to nasty elites (also true); if we make these societies and ecnomies more disconnected from the global economy, that will force their bad regimes to change (breakdown occurs here).

This is classic, and painfully simplistic "shock therapy" thinking. It persists because American love simple answers to complex questions.