Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama released a formal government report declaring that there exists enough pumpable oil in the world to allow Western countries to mount a full boycott of Iranian oil exports.

It's an important development. If Western countries want to really put the squeeze on Iran's ruling zealots, they have to be prepared to cut off the one resource that provides Iran with almost 100% of its export revenues. But an oil crisis would just push prices higher, helping Tehran more than it would hurt. Or it could lead to a slowdown in the West just as the U.S. appears to be crawling out of its recession. Mr. Obama's decision sends the message that there will be no crisis: We can just stick our collective straws deeper into the Saudi desert and start sucking harder.

But while the White House believes the Saudis have the capacity, no one is really sure, since Saudi Arabia's oil industry is directly controlled by hyper-secretive government mandarins. "We won't know what the Saudis can do until we test it, and we're about to," one unnamed official told The New York Times.

Reading that, you have to figure the White House must have been declared an irony-free zone during Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's visit this week. Here's Barack Obama, racking his brain for a way out of the country's persistent oil dilemma; and trying to convince U.S. hawks that oil sanctions against Iran are a realistic alternative to bombing it. And right next to him is Stephen Harper, who's practically slathered in the stuff, and eager to sell.

In 2011, Mr, Obama delayed his decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would greatly facilitate the shipment of Canadian oil-sands output to American export terminals, until after this year's presidential election. This was clearly so that Mr. Obama wouldn't have to offend his environmental supporters while he seeks a second term. We know this because none of the nominal excuses offered for the delay holds water: The chosen route for the project over a major aquifer turns out to pose little actual risk. Indeed, the project had passed crucial safety tests, and the area is already criss-crossed by a large network of other pipelines.

Mr. Obama's foot-dragging, combined with the need to crank up Iranian sanctions, has turned the situation into a farce: The United States, and the world, need reliable sources of oil. And it is hard to think of one more reliable than Canada. Yet instead, Mr. Obama offers us Saudi Arabia, a theocratic dictatorship that has been targeted by terrorists and which continues to be laced with al-Qaeda supporters. In what world does it make sense for America to rely more on Saudi sheiks than Canadian oil companies?

Leftists may snigger at the "ethical oil" argument put forward by oil sands defenders. But the logic is compelling. After Canada and Mexico, the top suppliers to the United States are Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Angola and Iraq. Not one real democracy in the lot, all of them with serious political and stability issues, and none of them right next door.

Canada, on the other hand, is just across the border, is a close friend and ally of the United States, and is both ready and eager to ensure a reliable increase in supply. Certainly, we would rather sell it into the United States than have to send it West, through terrain that truly is ecologically sensitive, and on to China. But Washington's willingness to play games with the Keystone project has only served to increase Ottawa's awareness of the need to find other customers.

"Look, I'm a strong and firm believer in the economic importance of our relationship, the security importance, and the importance of the United States and the world," Mr. Harper told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

"But we cannot take this to the point where we are creating risk and significant economic penalty to the Canadian economy ... to not diversify to Asia, when Asia is a growing part of the world, just simply makes no sense."

He noted that in years past, Canada has been willing to tie itself to the U.S. market. But the Keystone decision demonstrated the danger of this in two ways: the price of Canadian oil suffers because Canada is seen as a "captive supplier" to the United States. Canada's economic health is also put in jeopardy by the fact that the United States could some day stop importing our oil.

Mr. Obama could have avoided all this by accepting the selfe vident benefit to the United States of getting Keystone built as quickly as possible. Instead he's got to juggle Saudi capacity against Iranian vengefulness, and the long-term implications of a risky sanctions plan that could blow up in the face of its supporters.

Relying on his friends in Canada would have been so much easier.

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