[American Thinker] There is no question that the Middle East Arab-Israeli oil situation is one of the world's most enduring and vexing problems. Almost every economically significant country in the world has a major stake in how this scenario plays out, and most countries orient and arrange a large part of their foreign policy and energy strategy with Middle East considerations front and center in their planning.
What if the United States had been presented with the opportunity to circumvent the Mideast Jewish-Arab oil crisis before it had a chance to metastasize into the worldwide scourge it is today? The opportunity did, in fact, present itself in 1945. Unfortunately, the United States ‐ under Franklin D. Roosevelt ‐ failed to capitalize on it, and thus the world today lives in constant danger caused by the flashpoint of those seemingly unending, unsolvable regional tensions.
The missed opportunity was the result of FDR's mishandling of his historic meeting with King Abdel Aziz ibn Saud of Arabia on Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal on February 14, 1945. FDR's actions here essentially created the 70-plus-year economic and political tensions and conflicts regarding oil that continue to afflict international relationships and define the national security and oil acquisition strategy of virtually every developed country in the world today. Most of the damaging international energy-related circumstances in the present-day world were set in motion by FDR's actions at that meeting.
Roosevelt knew that as America entered the post-WWII era, it would no longer be able to provide itself with enough oil-based fuel to meet its growing economic and military needs. Saudi Arabia, with its vast, largely untapped oil fields, was a key part of America's post-WWII economic puzzle. America needed to get there first, to be regarded by the Saudis as their trusted friend and ally, in order to receive favorable treatment and obtain prioritized access to Saudi oil, in preference over the other major WWII victors, like the Soviets, China, and Britain. |