'Washington ignores democratic values in quest for cheap oil'

The government of US President George W. Bush has recently made contradictory moves towards key foreign oil producers, sowing confusion about its policy goals, according to Frank Verrastro of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

If democracy and support for human rights are the main engine of US diplomacy, "then you have to wonder why we have not taken a tougher line with Russia, why we have not taken a tougher line with Kazakhstan, why we have not taken a tougher line with Libya?" he asked.

Yet US officials "use it when we talk about Venezuela, and we use it when we talk about the Middle East," said Verrastro, an expert in energy policy.

"Increasingly it is looking like a case-by-case application of what is more important," he said. "It is depending on what the perceived needs of the day are."

Washington announced on May 15 it was normalising relations with Libya, which has important crude oil reserves, despite the lack of political reforms visible in a country led since 1969 by the same man, Muammar Gaddafi.

On the same day US officials imposed sanctions on Venezuela, a country that supplies 15 percent of US oil imports. The stated reason: populist President Hugo Chavez's lack of cooperation in the US-led "war on terror".