Iraq
Afghanistan
"Lib"ya [land of the libs]
The US has the largest energy reserves in the world [coal, oil, gas, etc.], but leftist environmentalists don't want us drilling and they are successful in stopping us.....Leftist democrats like spending and that forces us to borrow
the US has talked about oil independence since the 1970's, but we import more now than ever before [65-70% of our needs, I think]......we buy oil from the Middle East, or at least, prices of oil we import are dependent upon the price of Middle East oil........
Saudi Arabia and other ME countries sell us oil and buy our debt.........
What happens to us if they don't sell us oil or hold it back from the market?......What happens if they don't buy our debt or dump it on the market?......We apparently don't want to find out......
Does our oil dependence and debt purchase dependence force us to interfere militarily in the Middle East? [I haven't even discussed how our dependence on China buying our debt hampers our foreign policy]
I'm undecided about the answer to this, but I lean towards "YES".....thanks libs for more unintended consequences!