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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: tejek who wrote (242681)8/6/2005 8:44:29 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (2) of 1572423
 
If the US had no need to import middle east oil, the oil there would still be important to us. A reduction of supply will increase the world price hurting us even if we don't actually import any oil from the middle east, and effecting us even if we produce exactly as much oil as we need. Also our trading partners would still import oil, and even if we were not currently importing oil the middle east has the largest reserves. Even if we used 1/10th of the oil we currently used (and thus were an oil exporter, or at least a potential exporter considering the fact that production might also go down), we would still be likely to eventually need to import oil.

For that matter the first Gulf War was not just about our need for oil or the indirect effect that a loweing of supply to our trading partners would have on us. As long as anyone needs oil there will be a lot of money involved in being able to sell it. If Iraq could dominate the supply by controling its own oil, and Kuwait's and threatening Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, it would have become a far larger threat to the world. And remember Iraq used to have a very serious WMD program. Perhaps it was entirely dismantled but that was only after the Gulf war. Even if the US was an oil exporter it would have made sense to liberate Kuwait and protect Saudi Arabia.

Consequently, al Qa'ida would have stayed out of our business.

A highly questionable statement, mainly in light of what I wrote above but also in the sense that Islamic radicalism and terrorism was a developing threat even before the first Gulf War.

Tim
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