I invite you to revisit some of your statements.
“With us taking over Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Venezuela...” Who is “us”? Multinational energy companies don’t necessarily align with US policy interests. Up until last year, US-based majors have shied away from Iraq. (That changed last year, but active production has predominantly been in the hands of Royal Dutch Shell, ENI, Total, BP, and other European companies.)
We have no more and no less influence over the Arabs than we have had for the past half century. The Saudis are our closest sometimes-allies, but they have not been reluctant to manipulate the market in order to weaken US competition. They drove prices down by flooding the market and thereby blew up US domestic small and mid-sized producers. The Saudis have the power and patience to endure short-term pain in order to cripple US production, as they did most spectacularly in 2020. I question what real long-term influence we have on any foreign country’s production levels. If we want cheaper oil, will Nigeria or Canada or Mexico bend the knee? I doubt it. (By the way, of all the countries you list, Canada was probably the most likely to align our interests with theirs, but that changed last year.)
When you say Syria was at one time a player, it’s now ranked #58 in the world as a producer at 60,000 barrels a day. If it were to return to its 2011 peak of 305,000 barrels a day, it would still be only #32, between Australia and Turkmenistan.
Being king, or hegemon, or whatever you want to call it, gives us strategic muscle to shut down or limit exports from strategic adversaries, but it doesn’t create new production to meet our needs.
One last point, and a completely apolitical one: to the extent that governmental policies result in cheaper energy for the American consumer, the less the incentive for US producers to Drill, Baby, Drill. There is the conundrum of affordability today constraining availability in the future.
Saudi Arabia has their own economic interests which they pursue.
But in the bigger picture, they are under our thumb.
For example, their national guard is basically a praetorian guard for their royal family. We built that organization, trained them, organized them, equipped them. In fact, one of the master minds in putting that together for the Saudis was General Dempsey (his job before Iraq): https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Dempsey
If you look at Saudi Arabia and their equipment, the military hardware, it’s mostly ours, and most of their key military leaders are trained in US defense institutions.
You have US and Saudi Arabia cooperating on security matters (sharing information) and US bases there (low key).
When we pressure them to take out some of the folks financing Suni based terror groups (first Trump term) in Saudi Arabia (key folks in Saudi Arabia) the Saudi’s do as told, even at great internal risk to their own regime.
When the US pressures Saudi Arabia to take greater military action in Yemen, they do so.
That is because at the top level, we have a huge influence on Saudi Arabia and no one can really fill the void. It’s not like Saudi Arabia can turn to someone else for help. If we cut them off, they would be in horrible trouble in a very short time.
Firms like Agrip, Fina, Total, BP, Shell might be Euro firms, but they ultimately pump much of their oil out of the ground where (((we))) in the background have the political reigns. In fact, that was a MAJOR concern the French had regards Iraq 2003 since they went against the war and were worried we would not honor the previous agreements they had made in Iraq in the Saddam era.
Furthermore, we have through our military might and presence in key areas control over most of the key navigation routes and canals. Not the Russians, not the Chinese, we do.
Most of the world’s trade in oil is conducted in the USD.
Most the mechanisms for financial transfers are controlled by us.
We are single handedly the biggest in terms of building some of the infrastructure in the oil industry with firms like Bechtel, Flour, Halliburton or smaller but important specialized firms in niche areas (blow outs, fires, etc) leading the way.
Times have changed. This isn’t ancient Rome where you need a Prefect and legionaries standing on every corner to own a place.