At the NATO summit, President Biden said that gas prices are so high because Putin invaded Ukraine. Actually, it’s because of the way Western leaders, including Joe Biden, chose to respond to Putin’s invasion: by cutting off Russian oil. In theory, it’s fine to boycott the oil of a nation to punish it for launching a war, but this doesn’t seem to be hurting Russia at all. In fact, according to The New York Times:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered global condemnation and tough sanctions aimed at denting Moscow’s war chest. Yet Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels, by far its biggest export, soared to records in the first 100 days of its war on Ukraine, driven by a windfall from oil sales amid surging prices, a new analysis shows.

Russia earned what is very likely a record 93 billion euros in revenue from exports of oil, gas and coal in the first 100 days of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, according to data analyzed by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a research organization based in Helsinki, Finland. About two-thirds of those earnings, the equivalent of about $97 billion, came from oil, and most of the remainder from natural gas.

“The current rate of revenue is unprecedented, because prices are unprecedented, and export volumes are close to their highest levels on record,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst who led the center’s research.

In other words, the Russians are getting richer than ever on their oil and gas exports. How, exactly, is our oil ban hurting them? It’s not! But it’s hurting consumers in the US and Europe, and will do so indefinitely. We are plunging into recession because of all this. Do you think that the Biden administration cares? Watch this:

Yeah, why don’t you ask the working people struggling to fill up their cars how much they care about The Future Of The Liberal World Order. The unhappy fact is that Russia is going to win this war, and our oil and gas boycotts are not only not hurting Russia, but helping it get richer while impoverishing our own peoples. What sense does that make? In May, the governor of the Bank of England — the equivalent in the US to the head of the Federal Reserve — warned of “apocalyptic” food shortages coming later this year, as Ukraine produces 27 percent of the world’s wheat, but can’t export it because of the war. Like most people, I hate Russia’s war on Ukraine, but again, is it worth our own people going hungry to prevent Russia from prevailing in a war it will inevitably win anyway?

We Americans — with the possible exception of those who lived through the Great Depression — have never had to deal with food shortages. It’s hard to figure what that will do to our politics. Talking heads like Joe Biden and his advisors who gas on about the sanctity of the Liberal World Order are going to have to do a lot of explaining to hungry, angry American consumers — as will Biden’s EU counterparts.

You can’t eat the Liberal World Order. You can’t power your car or heat your home with the Liberal World Order. If Ukraine stood a reasonable chance of beating Russia, maybe — maybe — it would be worth the sacrifice. But that’s not going to happen, and as soon as US and European publics get sick and tired of being impoverished so Joe Biden and Ursula Van Der Leyen can give Vladimir Putin the finger, Western political support for Ukraine’s struggle will collapse.

You don’t have to be pro-Putin to see that. You just have to take off the rose-colored glasses. Ukraine has given the Russians a hell of a fight, and good for them for doing so. But it was always a David vs. Goliath battle. Now is the time to find some way toward peace, before economic and food catastrophes shake the foundations of the Liberal World Order at home.