If we needed their oil in 2001, we should have seized and held their oilfields after flattening Mecca. That would have been a completely justified response to that attack. The Saudis couldn’t have done a -damned- thing about it.
Way back in the early 70s when OPEC was in control, I told my old college roommate at the time much the same thing.
I said that if we ever went to war in the Middle East, when the shooting stopped, it should be OUR oil.
Flattened Mecca and Medina and blown the Dome of the Rock to Kingdom Come.
Islam attacked us.