Andrew J. Bacevich Quotes

Iran controls over 2,000 km of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Iran can block oil export whenever necessary. Fox News doesn't have to make propaganda out of this. This is a natural ability of our country…. Both geo-politically and geo-strategically, we control this strategic artery of the world

Saudi Arabia is, of course, the keystone of OPEC. Saudi Arabia has had the distinction of remaining stable through all the escalating tumult of recent decades, reliably pumping out its roughly 10 million barrels a day like Bossy the cow in America's oil import barn.

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

[Describing Iraq:] … floats on a sea of oil.

Saudi Arabia supplies much oil to the U.S. And it is the world's largest consumer of American weaponry.

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.

Sellers of all fuels, whatever their conflicts, can stand in harmony on the platform of high oil prices.

The world’s dependence on Gulf oil will last for at least another generation.

The reason you have high oil prices in the United States is that you do not have enough refineries to refine the oil. Do you know that there has not been a refinery built in America in 15 years.

We will no longer be kowtowing to despotic rulers and feudal monarchs whose oil supply lines are crucial to other aspects of foreign policy.

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.

As we head to war with Iraq, President Bush wants to make one thing clear: This war is not about oil. It's about gasoline.

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.

I saw a report yesterday. There's so much oil, all over the world, they don't know where to dump it. And Saudi Arabia says, 'Oh, there's too much oil.' They - they came back yesterday. Did you see the report? They want to reduce oil production. Do you think they're our friends? They're not our friends.

All Americans are dependent for their energy on the Arabian peninsula.

As long as the United States - and the world - gets its oil from the Middle East, we will be drawn into the endless crises that seem endemic to the region. American energy independence would not only liberate us, it would also drive down the worldwide price of oil.

We get more oil from Canada than any country.

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.

If you compare the size of our reserves of Saudi Arabia and the whole Middle East, it's like three times as much as all of that combined and that's just the easily, readily available 1800 billion barrels and there are probably 3 billion barrels that are commercially just under that, available.

But the key thing is that Iraq, while it's got very large oil reserves, has marginalized itself as an oil exporter and these days its exports are only about one tenth that of neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The idea that America, whose oil production has been declining for the past 40 years, is now on track to become the world's biggest producer by 2015 is still hard to grasp.

We should be sending our energy dollars to the Mid-West, not to the Middle East.

Safety and certainty in oil, lie in variety and variety alone.

A commitment in Iraq was inevitable. We had to establish a base at Basra, and control that port to safeguard Persian oil in case of need.

Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs.