Meanwhile, we waste our time in the ME.
Most of our foreign oil used to come from Venezuela.
Most people there would be thrilled if we mounted a ‘rescue’ and dumped the idiot truck driver.
It would be a wealthy country a few minutes later.
Most of their oil is tar and asphalt. We imported it because we had the only refineries setup to refine the poor grade oil.
Venezuela has never provided a majority of our oil imports.
U.S. Crude Oil Imports by Country of Origin
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbblpd_a.htm
When our imports from Venezuela peaked in 1997 at 1.77MMBPD, that was less than 20% of our total imports.