Obama: Oil price is among most dangerous weapons

Calling the price of oil one of the world’s most “dangerous weapons,” Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) on Friday painted a doomsday picture of $12-a-gallon gas to highlight the importance of ridding the U.S. of its addiction to foreign oil.

“The price of a barrel of oil is now one of the most dangerous weapons in the world,” Obama said in remarks prepared for a speech in Ohio. “Tyrants from Caracas to Tehran use it to prop up their regimes, intimidate the international community and hold us hostage to a market that is subject to their whims.”

{mosads}Obama criticized the Bush administration for having “narrowly defined security as fighting an open-ended war in Iraq,” instead of tackling other issues that are all tied to keeping the country safe.

“In the interconnected world of this new century, new threats come from stateless terrorists, loose nuclear weapons, the spread of pandemic disease, an inability to compete with rising powers in the global economy, the threat of global climate change and our dependence on foreign oil,” the Illinois Democrat stated.

Obama used Iran as an example to illustrate his point, saying that, if the country decided to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices could double to $300-a-barrel and the price of a gallon of gasoline could triple in the U.S. to $12.

“The nearly $700 million a day we send to unstable or hostile nations also funds both sides of the war on terror, paying for everything from the madrassas that plant the seeds of terror in young minds to the bombs that go off in Baghdad and Kabul,” Obama argued.

The senator criticized his rival, GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), for having been in Washington for 26 years and in that time achieving “little to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

“So when he talks about the failure of politicians in Washington to do anything about our energy crisis, understand that Sen. McCain has been a part of that failure,” Obama said.

The Democrat noted that “it won’t be easy” to kick the oil addiction.

“Achieving energy independence is one of the greatest challenges we’ve ever faced, and it will be the great project of our generation,” he stated.

“The challenge we face from our energy dependence is great. Meeting it will take time, and it will not be easy,” Obama concluded. “But if we’re willing to work at it, and invest in it, and sacrifice for it; if we’re willing to summon the same spirit of optimism and possibility that has defined this country’s greatest progress, then I believe that we too will be able to do it if we really try.”