How to lower oil prices

Fareed Zakaria, writing in Newsweek says what I've been saying for a long time:

"As consumers, we do not pay for the enormous expense involved in policing the Middle East, an expense we would almost certainly not incur if its chief export was carrots. We do not pay for the environmental fallout from burning gasoline. We get free roads and a free ride.

If the president and Congress were to propose a powerful package of measures—higher gas taxes, fuel-efficiency standards starting at 30 and rising to 40 miles per gallon, tax credits for new technologies—it would begin to wean the United States off its addiction to oil. And, it would signal to the market that demand for oil in the United States was likely to slow and
stabilize."

I disagree with the part about higher fuel-efficiency standards, though. People and car-makers should be allowed whatever cars they want; but tax them for the extra guzzling. If SUV drivers had to pay their fair share for the war in Iraq, maybe we wouldn't have a war there.