Does our need for Mideast oil preclude isolating Islam?

A reader writes:

I agree with you. But it is impossible at present to leave Moslems alone and isolate them because they have 2/3 of the world’s oil reserves. Forty percent of all exported oil comes through the Persian Gulf and that is why we are in Iraq, to protect the Saudi and other oil fields in the Persian gulf area and the shipping lanes. Presently, whoever controls those facilities has a big leg up on controlling the world. If it falls into the hands of Saddam Hussein or some terrorist group it would give them the power to blackmail all industrial countries into a form of dhimmi submission because without energy (in this case oil) there is no modern society possible. We need to free ourselves from Arab oil dependency, and this takes an all-out effort including a massive building of nuclear energy. Nuclear-generated electricity is today the only technology that can free us of dependency on foreign oil. Curently it is politically very difficult to overcome the liberals who oppose nuclear energy. The obstructionists to nuclear energy are not concerned about the dangers of nuclear plants, because they know there is none. Their real desire in my opinion is to deny America energy as a way of cutting us down.

My reply:

You are right about the need to develop other energy sources so that we will not be dependent on Mideast oil. But let’s ask the hard question: what if, despite the urgent need, it’s not possible for us to develop them? Then we would have to keep our forces sufficiently present in the Persian Gulf region to protect the oil fields and oil shipments. That would not necessarily interfere with my idea of containing Islam by removing jihad supporters from the West (and they may be as many as 90 percent of the Western Moslem population), sending them back home, containing Moslems in their own lands, and avoiding involvement in internal Moslem affairs. From an independent permanent base in the area we would threaten to overthrow any government that got dangerous or failed to contain its terrorists. If terrorists got into power, we’d go in and topple their regime and kill them. Again, the key idea is that we may have to interfere temporarily from time to time for specific purposes, but that we don’t get involved in engineering Moslem societies.

Reader:

I agree with you entirely. Only be in the Persian Gulf in order to control oil supplies. Saddam Hussein built some of the largest military bases in the world in the western desert of Iraq, and now that we have them we should never leave those bases. Just get out of their cities. The western desert of Iraq is sparsely settled and we would not even been seen by the general population if we stay in those bases. One airbase is larger than Heathrow Airport in London. To leave Iraq is a military mistake because they are perfect bases for what you want to achieve. We should be there only for the oil.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 28, 2005 12:12 PM | Send