Oil and Censorship: Would West Asia be more free without oil?

The two are as intimate as blood and nationalism are. "The First Law of Petropolitics," according to Thomas Friedman, is that "the price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions in oil-rich petrolist states." The Christian Science Monitor reports on the trend of increasing censorship in Iran , Russia and Venezuela - all of whom have benefited from rising oil prices. The money helps ruling regimes buy off the opposition and create the resources needed to contain them.