F... gas prices

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha

I don't that is entirely correct. The U.S. government has a great deal of influence over middle eastern countries and, by extension, OPEC. For example, many middle eastern countries rely on the U.S. to supply their militaries with arms. Guess who gets to approve or reject the sale of those weapons? The United States Congress. Moreover, if the U.S. ever manages to create a semi-stable security environment in Iraq, the U.S. could pressure the Iraqis to flip the bird to OPEC and start pumping out boatloads of oil. Obviously our influence over OPEC's member countries wasn't great enough to convince them to up their oil quotas, but I think it's inaccurate to say that we don't have any negotiating power.

All true and all examples of things that would bring even greater hatred of America in the middle east unfortunately. Our power there is directly offset by their unreasonableness(word?) towards our actons and their willingness to do awful things when we piss them off.