We don't produce enough gas / oil to be self sufficient - we produce 40% only. Now, 40% happens to be one of the largest producing oil sources in the world but we do eat an awful lot of oil.
Lets forget the niceties and philosophy of why we went to war and why we are still there. Lets forget 'democracy' and 'brutal dictators'. Lets go back to the basics of economics.
1) Middle-East has oil - A lot of it still.
2) we still receive 25% of our oil from the ME
3) a good chunk of the pacific rim depends on ME oil.
In 1973 the ME OPEC decided.. hmm.. we don't like the US and their support for Israel, so let's SCREW them and stop selling oil to the US. What happened? We got screwed. For 18 months, people were lining up for VERY expensive gasoline only to find it rationed by the federal and state government. Why didn't the US do anything about this? We couldn't. We had a small contingent of marines in Lebanon and that was it. The Russians backed Iran and Syria. We could not move troops into the region.
Guess what - THAT won't be a problem any time soon. Like it or not, for whatever reason you want to accept, the US has now extreme MILITARY and ECONOMIC pressure to bring against OPEC if it decided to try to deny US oil. We are practicing RealPolitic (not the first nor last time you will hear that from me).
Don't start whining to me next about "what right do we have to make them sell our oil.." get with the program. Its not about "right" - it's about economic necessity. We NEED oil to keep our economic gears running. We will ENSURE that this remains a possibility until we get our butts OFF of the black tar.
Rant over. Vote for Fred Thomson or Mitt Romney. I will.
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