Thomas Friedman Quotes

I did not think so at first. But the US is so incredibly dependent on oil, that they wanted to secure oil in case competition on the world market becomes too hard.

As far as the Middle East and North Africa is concerned, we need to reconsider the question of reliability and stability of hydrocarbons.

By curious accident of history and geography, the world's major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They're a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf.

The war and terrorism in the Middle East, the crisis of leadership in many of the oil-supply countries in the developing world, the crisis of global warming - all these are very clearly tied to energy.

America is addicted to oil which is often imported from the most unstable part of the world.

American oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy.

The price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions. It’s the First Law of Petropolitics.

If the principle product of the Middle East were broccoli, we would not worry about the Middle East.

The Persian Gulf region would have zero strategic importance were it not for the oil.

The problem is that the good Lord didn’t see fit to put oil and gas reserves where there are democratic governments.

Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches

For the U.S., the primary interest is our continued access to Saudi Arabian oil in adequate quantities... at an acceptable political as well as economic price.

Controlled Middle East oil, it would control the world. This oil represents 65 percent of world oil reserves. Therefore, America believes if it squashed Iraq, it would control the oil of the Middle East and consequently hold the oil in its hands [and] fix its price the way it likes.

Even when it comes to things like wars over oil, which may seem like a whole different ball game, there are still comparisons one can draw: chimps fight for their territory; they fight for the resources within that territory, so it does relate in a way.

The Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.

Nothing would please me more, but who else would pump the oil that we need? God damn America.

All my life I have been hearing that the oil was going to run out. It never happens. They keep discovering new oil fields. The world is apparently floating in oil fields.

We've got, not only the Alaskan pipeline is not being built, and that oil, Canada may decide to sell it to China, and we may lose that oil forever.

We think we're near energy independence - nothing could be further from the truth. We're in much better shape now, but the price of a barrel of oil is going to be controlled by the Middle East for the next 10, 20, 30 years for sure.

We consume about 25 percent of the world's oil. We only have 2 percent of the reserves.

I think the business community knows that half the world's oil reserves are gone. All the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and now there's the scramble for what remains.

I think that people are having to do like really crazy things to shock people now, to get people's attention and it kind of, it's this way in lots of different aspects of life. You know, people fight for attention. It's competitive. So they need to be the one that stands out.

For the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

We Americans think we are pretty good! We want to build a house, we cut down some trees. We want to build a fire, we dig a little coal. But when we run out of all these things, then we will find out just how good we really are.

I want to give a shout-out to all my Saudi Arabian brothers and sisters. If you could all please send me some oil for my jet, I would truly appreciate it.