Imagine if we had spent the money we allocated to the war in Iraq toward eliminating the oil addiction. The tab for the Iraq war hovers around the $1 trillion mark and grows at a clip of at least $12 billion a month. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the cost through 2017, including hidden costs such as veterans' benefits, could total $2.4 trillion.
There is little question that America is defending its interests in the Middle East largely because of oil.
In his recent memoir "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote: "I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil."
Declaring war on oil should be -- literally -- a war, giving the president and Congress emergency powers to mobilize the nation as never before.
I am not talking about platitudes, which we are once again hearing from presidential candidates.
I remember watching Jimmy Carter's 1977 televised speech in which he said dealing with America's oil dependency as "the moral equivalent of war."
In the years since, every president and presidential candidate has repeated the call to lessen America's dependence on foreign oil. Yet little has been done.
Today the crisis is worse than ever as oil soars over $100 a barrel.
Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens recently appeared on CNBC's "Squawk Box." Pickens painted a dire picture: The U.S. is paying foreigners one-half trillion dollars a year -- and some of those nations are our enemies.
At current rates, America is set to spend $5 trillion over the next 10 years to buy foreign oil, Pickens said, adding "That's more than $1 billion a day."
And he's right; the beneficiaries of this wealth transfer are often the "bad guys" -- Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.
The numbers show our dependency. Currently, about 70 percent of U.S. electricity generation comes from the burning of fossil fuels, with nuclear power accounting for about 20 percent, hydroelectric 5.6 percent, and all other sources only about 2.5 percent.