Does the Worlds Dependence oil Make the Middle East Much more important than it should be?

Question

Because of petrolum these Governments are artifically enriched and are getting ready to have Nukes, Hurry.

Answer 1

Well, I'm not sure how important it "should be," but they'd be dirt poor without the oil. As Ted Rall observed in _To_Afghanistan_and_Back_, the Afghans were blessed with just two natural resources: dirt and rocks. As it is, now there's a small ruling class that has tons of money, and the other 99% are dirt poor. Hooray!

Seriously, though, there are other regions, like the Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic (ha!) of Congo, where people are getting killed left and right, disappearing in the middle of the night, and nobody outside of Africa seems to care. It's the same sort of thing, really, except they're fighting over diamonds rather than oil. The West likes diamonds, but we don't _need_ them like we need oil. Plus people don't seem to care that their diamonds were probably mined by a ten-year old who got his left hand lopped off because he mouthed off to his captors.

As for your "nukes" claim, I'm not sure who you're referring to. Pakistan has claimed to be on the road to nuclear capacity, as has hated neighbor India. As for Syria and Iran, that's just gossip and questionable intelligence. You've see how accurate our claim of Iraqi WMD's was.

The bottom line is that people living in poverty will do some terrible things in pursuit of a better life. That's why they're so susceptible to siding with corrupt governments and wingnut terrorist organizations. They have nothing to lose, and even death might be better than the life they have.

Answer 2

They are not artifically enriched because the oil is from the ground. Not just the oil but how poor the people are and the location of the Middle East in Eurasia. All things things come into play when you want to take over the world.

Answer 3

Yep, just another reason we should be using wind and solar power.

Answer 4

You bet your biblical beast of burden their importantce is over exaggerated.

Answer 5

Oh absolutely.