Us Foreign Policy in the Middle East- Oil

As an industrial superpower, oil is an extremely important factor in maintaining that status. The United States and the entire world depend on oil to run their machines and engines. The Middle East produces over 60% of the world's oil supply. Demands for this oil increases every year. The United States relies on the Middle East for about 14% of all oil needs, but that percentage keeps on growing. As disaster and lack of reserves damage our own oil reserves, the United States needs more options for obtaining oil. The Middle East is the cheapest to extract. We need to maintain a healthy relationship with these Middle Eastern nations to be able to use these oil reserves.

This is a problem though because all of those major oil producers of the Middle East are all divided economically and politically. In history, political issues have caused governments, such as Saudi Arabia, to place oil embargoes or completely cut off the United States from oil supply. Saudi Arabia did this in hope to influence the United States to side with them in conflicts. This shows us today that oil is not just an economic issue, but a political one also. The United States needs to manage foreign policy very delicately to assure that we will not cause regions to change our healthy connections. We should try to balance our relations with the Arabs so our support will not be as one sided it has been with our aid towards Israel. This will help us gain a status of being fair and a stable peacemaker. This will also help show the nations that we