The other general flaw in the "it's all about the oil" argument is that the US doesn't get a lot of its oil out of the Middle East to begin with.I've heard that repeated so many times that I'm almost starting to believe it myself. You turn off the oil anywhere on the planet and it will affect us and everyone else. If Japan loses ME oil, they just go to the market and bid for someone else's oil.
Richard W.
While that is true, there are untapped/undertapped resources elsewhere in areas that are more stable politically (yes, this includes Russia, if only by default). Indeed, the situation since August 1990 belies the "all oil" argument. Iraqi oil has been basically missing from the market since it invaded Kuwait; yet oil prices have been remarkably consistent (by that, I mean that temporary spikes in either direction quickly return to the mean; a great chart/explanation is provided by the Department of Energy
here).
The biggest fear regarding oil is Saudi Arabia and its vassal states retaliate against our elimination of the Arab WMD developer (Iraq) by shutting down their production and employing suicide boats against tankers loaded with Iraqi/Iranian/Kuwaiti oil.