Taking Oil Out Of The Equation, by Michael T. Klare

In his original statements, bin Laden’s declared goals were far more limited and pragmatic: to drive the United States out of Saudi Arabia, oust the royals, and put Muslims in control over the production of oil. “We cannot let the American army stay in the Gulf area and take our oil, take our money, and we have to do something to take them out. We have to fight them,” he said in one his original fatwas, from the early 1990s. For students of Middle Eastern politics and history, this is much closer to the anti-imperialist diatribes that arose in the shadow of British imperialism after World War II than to the millennial mysticism cited by Bush, and helps to explain bin Laden’s continuing popularity in the region.

Against this backdrop, American claims that the war in Iraq and other facets of the U.S. military presence in the region have nothing to do with oil will fall on deaf ears in the Middle East so long as the United States remains dependent on Persian Gulf oil, continues to stand by its alliance with the Saudi royal family, and retains its belief in the legitimacy of using military force to protect the flow of oil.
Tom Paine