Have you heard of O-I-L?
We are still dependent on it and we better keep some friends in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is one of the few left.
The Shah of Iran was our friend, but as a result of Carter’s lack of support against the Islamists, now Iran is an Islamic terrorist nation about to have a nuclear bomb.
As I said, we better keep and support our friends in the ME.
Ah, so we get to the heart of the matter. Rather than develop Bakken or the Keystone pipeline we're going to keep crawling on our knees to filthy sand pirates for our meth fix.