[So what? There could have been Israel, Iran, Egypt and Lybia left for balance of powers.]
I understand Iraq was a longtime Soviet ally under Saddam, and Putin has benefited hugely from the rise in oil prices from $20 in the late 90’s to about $60 today, and would have benefited if oil prices had spiked to $100. The average American consumer, however, would not be pleased, since all domestic oil profits go to the producers and the mineral rights holders. American industry would be devastated. And in 1991, we’d still need to import 10m barrels a day, since our production was 7m barrels and our consumption was 17m barrels. At $100 per barrel, that would have been an annual oil import bill of $365b. By comparison, the $60b tab for Desert Storm, paid for by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Germany and Japan, was a bargain. It was probably the only war in which the Treasury received more in donations from Allied countries than it disbursed to the Pentagon.
I understand why you don’t like the Saudi royals. They were in part responsible for the strangulation of the Soviet economy by engineering the oil glut that killed Soviet export earnings. Part of the credit for the fall of the Berlin Wall must go to them. The fact, though, is that Russian interests are very different from, and mostly opposed to, American interests, which is why I find it very strange that you’re posting on an American opinion site.
In fact all of the above is not the case. I am just pointing at the fact that US has own oil and a lot of it. It is currently among top producers. It could be there in 1990 too.
And Saddam still had to sell his oil somewhere US included.
You are heavily exaggerating the above development impact on both oil price and US industry.
I think everyone agree that 9/11 was a price too high. And 9/11 is actually just a drop in the ocean.