Actually, we are not really in the ME for oil, and never have been. Its a plausible sounding explanation that lends itself to leftist conspiracy theories, but we get most of our oil from three countries: The US, Mexico, and Canada.
Admittedly, if we drilled ANWAR, we could eliminate the ME from the equation entirely, but those countries would still be full of well-funded terrorists who wanted to destroy us, so that probably wouldn't be a very wise idea.
Of course the US is so heavily invested in the middle east because of oil. Where the US itself gets oil is irrelevant because its a fact that its a global market and every drop of oil that is drilled is used. If all middle eastern nations stopped supplying oil or dramatically increased the price...prices would spike everywhere
Ensuring a supply of a critical natural resource is certainly valid reason to be in the middle east...but the debate over whether we should be in the middle east should not be based only on an assumnption that, if the US leaves, Islamists will take over the region and effect the supply of oil to cripple the US economy. That could happen...but, that also assumes that (1) because the US withdraws from the region, the Islamists will be able to topple more moderate regimes (no guarantee of that since the greatest strength of the Islamists is their ability to exploit the presence of the US in the region and US support for what many Muslims consider illegitimate regimes) and (2) that Islamists would be able to for a sustained period of time disrupt the supply of oil (which would reduce the demand for oil and remember that they need to sell oil as much as we need to buy it).
We also need to remember that, right now, the cost of oil is more than just the $60 or $70 market cost of a barrel of oil. There are a lot of hidden costs the US taxpayer assumes to ensure the free flow (in terms of foreign aid and military support and the presence of the US military bases in the region). Add those costs in and the cost of oil now is more than we realize. We also need to accept what the US government wants us to deny...that there is another cost to the policies that try to guarantee a free flow of oil...an increased threat of terrorism.
And, for those who believe that we should remain in the region (or even expand the American presence in the region) so as to have access to cheap oil...if that presence leads to a few nukes going off in American cities that kill thousands of Americans and really cripple the economy...our efforts to keep the price of oil low by maintaining a huge presence in the middle east will truly seem penny wise and pound foolish in retrospect
That might be correct, but remember that oil is a fungible commodity that is traded on global spot markets. If the Middle East had no oil, we'd be exporting a lot of our own oil to other places -- or paying a far higher price for what we produce and consume here.
Saudi Arabia is our number two (maybe three) source of foreign oil, after Canada. Last I looked they were still in the middle east. The Saudi oil industry was built decades ago by an outfit called Aramco--short for Arab American Corporation. We have been in the middle east for oil for generations.