Michael T. Klare, in Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, writes that the United States produced more than its actual use of energy- it exported the rest - and this drove the country’s prosperity in the post World War II era. America’s dominance in this period rested on its enormous economic growth, and its military power. Both rely on oil. However,

Domestic oil production reached a peak in 1970 and has been in decline ever since — with a growing dependency on imported oil as the result. When it came to reliance on imports, the United States crossed the 50% threshold in 1998 and now has passed 65%.

In contrast, Russia is now "is the world’s second leading producer of oil (after Saudi Arabia), and is its top producer of natural gas."

Russia supplies its neighbouring countries with most of its energy requirements. It now has growing influence on the shape of politics in Europe, and increasingly the rest of the world. This has undermined America’s influence.

Today, the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon took control of west Beirut from the government. There is now an arc of Shia Muslims in control from Iraq in the South West, through Iran, to Lebanon in the North. To the right of this arc the Sunni countries of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, and to the left is Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Even with this shift of power the OPEC countries, on a request by America, refuses to increase production to reduce the price of oil from its current $126 per barrel. They see no benefit.

In the past these Sunni kingdoms were happy to supply cheap oil to America because it assured them of their security against Shiite Iran. Now, with the failing war in Iraq, these countries are not sure that America can provide the stability they need. They continue to supply the oil but now it’s more for dollars then guarantees of stability.

In the politics of power countries look after their own interests.

The biggest problem developing countries face is political turmoil and violence. Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford and Bjørn Lomborg, Professor at the Copenhagen Business School,

The commodity boom and discovery of mineral resources in fragile states have sown seeds of discord, while the spread of democracy in low-income countries – perhaps surprisingly – increases the statistical likelihood of political violence.

Their solution is the deployment of peacekeeping forces in conflict areas. They have carried out the first cost benefit analysis of such initiatives,

Compared with no deployment, spending $100 million on a peacekeeping initiative reduces the ten-year risk of conflict from around 38% to 16.5%. At $200 million per year, the risk falls further, to around 12.8%. At $500 million, it goes down to 9%, and at $850 million drops to 7.3%.

They suggest that "Peacekeeping is an even better deal when it is provided in the form of an ‘over the horizon’ security guarantee: a reliable commitment to dispatch troops if they are needed." A guarantee could be offered by the UN or a regional power like the African Union to protect governments that came to power through certified democratic elections.

The United Nations is the closest we’ve got to a world government. We need to use it to deal with conflicts in the poorer countries in a consistent way.

Attitudes are hard to change. When people are in a war for a generation, they grow up with hatred toward their enemy. This is the case in the Middle East. The disaster of the Iraq war has made these attitudes more pronounced, and spread them to more countries.

Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Vice Chancellor from 1998 to 2005, paints a bleak picture of the situation in the Middle East,

Indeed, the war in Iraq has transformed the centuries-old Shia-Sunni conflict by infusing it with modern geopolitical significance and extending it to the entire region.

Not only this, there is now a potential for tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The rise of Iran poses an existential threat to Saudi Arabia, because the country’s oil-rich northeast is populated by a Shia majority. A Shia government in Baghdad, dominated by Iran, would, in the medium term, threaten Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity – a scenario that the Saudis cannot, and will not, accept.

There is now a new arrangement of power in the Middle East. The territorial power of Iran has increased with no effort of their own. The two Shia factions - Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon - surrounding Israel are supported by Iran. A solution to the conflict there will now have to rely on talking to Iran.