The world runs on money or its equivalent in precious commodities. Today, no commodity, after food, exists that is more desirable to larger portions of the population than oil. Petroleum touches almost every area of our life even if transportation is removed from the picture.

Plastics use petroleum as part of the ingredients for manufacture. The world around us is becoming more and more made of plastic everyday. This same plastic can be spun into polyester thread and put into clothing. Life-saving medical equipment uses plastic bags, tubes, and syringes. Cars, radios, televisions, computers, and an almost endless list of products all have plastic as part of their make up.

Petroleum products heat our homes, shod our feet, and of course move us and goods from place to place. Make no mistake, our world today needs petroleum. Oil is petroleum, and the Middle East nations know they control most of the production at this time. All nations line up at their door with a cup in hand looking for more oil.

Oil gives Middle East nations huge influence in world affairs. Countries can restrict the amount of oil that they will buy if a nation makes them angry. We see this when the United States and her allies placed an embargo on Iranian oil. However, this has not made a reduction in demand for Iranian oil. It just changed the customers standing in line.

When world stock markets sniff the possibility that oil may not flow as freely as the world wants and needs, it sends them into a nosedive. This keeps prices high and Middle East coffers full. With this glut of cash, these nations are positioned to finance political actions at home and abroad.

They can help channel cash to candidates who they believe will help further their causes. Even pard softline with restrictions for foreign contributions, United States presidential candidates manage to get money funneled through to their cash reserves. This buys influence on foreign policy decisions.

You can often see this in action when political leaders seem to waffle on whether to support our allies in the region or push an agenda of appeasement for Middle East oil suppliers. Many times the effort is to get nations to push Israel into concessions of land and power. These concessions help the enemies of Israel while straining relations between Israel and her allies.

The cash from these huge oil sales is used to arm Middle East nations with state-of-the-art arsenals of ships, jets, and artillery. Spending a few billion here or there seems like small change to these oil rich lands. They are also able to help arm various terrorists organizations that serve their political purposes. These can either undermine Israel or work to weaken her allies. In some cases, they simply wear down the resolve of these nations to stay on task of trying to build stability in the region.

The oil wells themselves become players. Nations, such as, the United States work hard to protect the wells that pump out our lifeblood flow of oil. We are willing to station our ships and military in the region at a huge cost to see that no one invades the nations. All nations that drink at the nipples of these oil producers are inclined to let them be hurt or invaded for fear of losing their supply. These countries are like the drunk protecting his last bottle of wine.