This seems to come down to: how should the USA deal with corrupt Arab dictatorships? It seems that we are damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Take Egypt: $3 billion dollars/year in aid, and the place is run by a crooked gang that will never allow honest elections. What do we do? If we push for democratic reforms in Egypt, Mubarek and his gang accuse us of interfering.
If we just accept the status quo, the islamic radicals will eventually take over the country.
Let’s face it, there is “NO RIGHT THING” when dealing with these countries. Since all of them (with the exception of Turkey) are one-party dictatorships, there is nothing that we can do to help their people, without enraging their leadership. If we could only free ourselves from dependence on ME oil, we would be much better off!
U.S. “dependence” on ME oil is largely a myth these days. A lot has changed since the early 1970’s, largely in response to conflicts with OPEC during that decade. As this table shows, the U.S. itself in 1996 produced far more crude oil than any ME nation except Saudi Arabia. And the trend has not changed much since. While we don’t produce anywhere near enough to meet our own needs, we also have the ability to import from all kinds of places outside the ME, such as Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, Nigeria, Canada, you name it.
What’s strange is to hear Iraqis wonder aloud in the media if the U.S. is “after their oil.” In the grand scheme of things, Iraq’s oil is of no consequence to the U.S. economy.
This is saying nothing about the dependence of Europe on ME oil though. I believe this is slowly changing, now that Russia is exporting westward, but I’m not an expert on these matters.
I agree with your comments on how we are in a no-win situation handling the governments in much of the Middle East. And of course, we have supported many of those governments in the past.
btw Coldfire, did you get my e-mail?
Yeah, I did. Will read and respond later.