Andanh.com

Power is dispersed today. There is no permanent bipartisan governing class in Washington, D.C. Globally, power has gone multipolar, with the rise of China, India, Brazil and the rest.

This dispersion should, in theory, be a good thing, but in practice, multipolarity means that more groups have effective veto power over collective action. In practice, this new pluralistic world has given rise to globosclerosis, an inability to solve problem after problem.

Last week, for the first time since World War II, an effort to liberalize global trade failed. The Doha round collapsed, despite broad international support, because India's Congress Party did not want to offend small farmers in the run-up to the next elections. Chinese leaders also dug in on behalf of cotton and rice producers.

In a decentered world, all it takes are a few well-placed parochial interests to bring a vast global process tumbling down.

And the Doha failure comes amid a decade of globosclerosis. The world has failed to effectively end genocide in Darfur. Chinese and Russian vetoes foiled efforts to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe. The world has failed to implement effective measures to deter Iran's nuclear ambitions. The world has failed to embrace a collective approach to global warming. Europe's drive toward political union has stalled.

Two energy sagas are playing out in Washington, D.C. One is a political drama. The other, a national security tragedy.

In the political drama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to allow a vote on offshore oil drilling. Why? Because moderate Democrats would join Republicans to pass a measure that -- while not being a panacea -- would at least demonstrate a commitment to decreasing the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

If that sounds undemocratic for a Democratic leader, it is.

The speaker scoffs at drilling because it will take too long, and instead champions a solution to the spike in gas prices that's as quick a fix as you can fancy -- drawing on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Rising prices at the pump are telling us that there's not enough supply to meet current global demand. And those vilified oil speculators are delivering the same simple economic expectation about the future. Make it possible to tap a greater supply, and that expectation will change.