I have heard, repeatedly, that the trouble with placing sanctions on Russia is that it would hurt our European 'allies' who are dependent on Russia for oil and natural gas.

Forgive me if I get this wrong, sometimes I slip into alternate realities... but hasn't there recently been a big debate over building the Keystone pipeline, which would provide a great deal of oil?

And hasn't it been discovered that the U.S. has tremendously huge reserves of natural gas under it?

So, if we had already built the pipeline, and were already exploiting our natural gas reserves... couldn't we offer Europe a deal on oil and natural gas to replace the oil and gas they would no longer be getting from Russia?

Sure is a shame that it wasn't possible to get that pipeline going, and a shame that regulations and red tape couldn't have been cut to retrieve that natural gas... years ago.

Oh, wait... it was possible. If Obama and his henchmen had not fought the exploitation of our energy resources for all these years, we could have done exactly that, and Russia would be easier to make come to heel without having to put boots on the ground...