As Obama's freefall has started to become obvious to everyone, I am giving up on writing about the election for the moment. Actually, I wasn't going to write at all today, as my pain flared up horribly. But I find writing is strangely addictive, and I can't seem to go a day without posting something. So here it is, as essay on one of the sillier slogans around: "No blood for oil".

Though everyone associates the idea of "blood for oil" with left wing politicians and activists, the underlying concept, that we are involved in the middle east solely for oil, is accepted by a whole range of individuals.From proponents of realpolitik to supposedly idealistic conservatives, it seems everyone has accepted the idea that we are involved in the middle east solely because of oil. I even had a commenter call our military spending in the middle east a "subsidy for the oil industry". Ignoring for now the misuse of the word subsidy (though I will probably write on that topic eventually¹), the concept that we are interested solely in oil is just absurd.

I suppose I should start with a slightly unusual strategy, conceding the point I am trying to disprove. At least partly conceding it. Yes, we are involved in the middle east because of oil. Of course, our dependence on foreign oil is largely the result of bad domestic policies, but, as those policies are a fact, we are of necessity involved in middle eastern politics. But to claim that we are solely involved, or that we try to "control the middle east" because of oil is just absurd. If we were trying to seize control of oil producing countries, then Hugo Chavez would have been killed by now. Likewise Canada and Mexico would have been annexed, or at least controlled by puppet governments. The fact that many large oil producing states continue to exist, pursuing policies often at odds with the wishes of the US, and are free of any substantial US military presence argues that oil alone does not bring US intervention. So, yes, keeping oil flowing on the world market is part of the reason we are in the middle east, but on its own it is hardly enough to explain our military presence.

To understand our interest in the middle east, we need to go back to the cold war.

First, we should look at Turkey. As a NATO ally, it is inevitable that we would have some military presence in Turkey, as we do in most NATO nations. But even without our NATO obligations, Turkey would have been of interest to our military during the cold war. It borders on the former USSR, both along the Armenian border and across the Black Sea, and the Bosporus and Dardanelles served to keep the Soviet Black Sea ports from getting access to the Mediterranean and beyond. All of this translated into a substantial military interest in this middle eastern country. And, not surprisingly, we find that early in the cold war we stationed a number of short and medium range nuclear bombers in Turkey, and later the nation hosted a number of our intelligence operations. All of which explains a considerable military presence, completely unrelated to oil.

Beyond Turkey, we find the Soviet Union was responsible for our interest in a number of other middle eastern nations. Not just during the cold war, but stretching all the way back to the reign of Peter the Great, Russia had an interest in obtaining a year round deep sea port unobstructed by other nations. Their Baltic and Black Sea ports could be cut off at  the Oresund and Kattegat (Baltic)and the Bosporus and Darndanelles (Black Sea), and the other ports were blocked by ice at least part of the year. So the Soviets, as the Russians before them, invested a lot of effort into obtaining that port. And one area to which they turned was the middle east, especially Persia/Iran. As Iran bordered on the Soviet Union and had desirable ports, it was a target for much Soviet activity. (Iraq and Syria were less attractive, as less accessible, but they too received Soviet attention.) As our policy of containment could allow neither a Soviet takeover of an independent state nor Soviet access to the open seas, we were required to maintain a large military presence capable of intervening in the middle east at a moment's notice.  So, yet again, we find a large military presence without any interest in oil.²

As our Soviet era treaties usually obligated us to provide some protection in exchange for military access, we also found ourselves involved in local military matters unrelated to the Soviets, such as providing military protection for Saudi Arabia, or, later, driving Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Thus, even after the Soviet threat was no more, we were still required to maintain a considerable military presence in the region to fulfill our duties to allied states.

There is also the state of Israel, which has also been a valuable US ally.³ Little of our military presence in the middle east is there directly to provide support to Israel, but some is. And this is yet another reason for our military presence, unrelated to oil.

Which brings us to the biggest reason, and the one which the "no blood for oil" crowd should be able to recognize, but don't. Due to both our military presence in the area and our support for Israel (as well as other reasons too numerous to mention here⁴), local terrorist groups have often developed an animosity toward the US. As certain hostile nations (Libya, Iran, Syria, etc.) have both supported and provided shelter for these groups, they are more of a threat to the US than other anti-American terrorists. Fortunately, until recently, they have also been largely confined to a single geographic region, the middle east, which provides yet another reason we maintain troops in the area, completely unrelated to oil. If states are going to support terrorists hostile to the US, is it any wonder that we keep troops close to those nations?

So, yes, oil is a concern, and part of the reason we keep troops in and around the middle east, but it is hardly the sole reason. During the cold war, we protected the area against Soviet expansion, and the treaties we signed then still keep us involved today. But, even more significant, so long as most terrorists come from the middle east, and are supported by rogue states within the middle east, I don't think we need to even consider oil when asking why we have troops there.

Why do we have so many troops in the middle east? For oil? No. Because that is where the enemy is.

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1. The habit of mischaracterizing normal spending as "subsidies" for this or that industry seems to be used in a number of spurious arguments. I haven't decided yet, but looking at the misuse of the concept of subsidies may make an interesting essay.

2. It is possible that some Soviet interest in the middle east was also an effort to cut off our oil supplies. They had little interest in taking new oil for themselves due to their own impressive reserves, but they could have ideas of threaten the oil reserves needed by the US. However, as they spent much less effort on the Arabian peninsula than in Persia/Iran, it appears the quest for ports was paramount in their middle eastern policy.

3. If anyone plans to respond to my description of Israel as an ally using the words "USS Liberty", please don't bother. I have read the sites, seen the arguments, and I am convinced "fog of war" explains it all perfectly. I have to think those who insist on some Israeli plot have another agenda, as not only isn't the evidence there, but what possible motive could Israel have? Unless you are of the "Israel=Evil Jews" school, what could explain an intentional attack on the Liberty?

4. It is likely that our presence in Saudi Arabia did not really motivate Bin Ladin. Still, the fact that he could use it as a justification, and that his followers would believe it means that our presence did help him recruit. So, whether he would have acted had we never been in Saudi Arabia is moot. Our presence provided him with a recruiting tool.