Bill, I think a good case can be made that the US and other Western countries have been at war (either overtly or covertly, or through proxies) almost continuously in the Middle East over petroleum, pretty much since someone figured out that petroleum could make people rich.

We might have rejected that one idea at that particular moment in history, but that hardly means that we haven't been using our might to have our way with the people and resources of the Middle East for the last century or so.