Why wouldn't they wish to be self-sufficient rather than dependent on an outside source?

You're correct that no one is invading them now at this moment. I am saying that if someone does invade them in the near future, they will have one hell of a fight on their hands, even if they nuke them first.

Haven't you noticed a pattern, Amos?

1. A vital strategic resource (oil) is located in a Third World country that will not do exactly what the great powers want it to do. It insists on pursuing an independent policy regarding its management of that strategic resource.

2. A great power (USA) claims that that country is a threat to the entire world! And is planning to attack its neighbours!

3. Israel claims that that country wants to wipe Israel off the map! (quite possibly a grain of truth in that, given the fact that Israel has made itself the most feared and detested country in that entire region by its own aggressive policies in the past few decades.)

And now (drum roll)...the clincher that provides the final excuse for a war of choice:

4. USA claims that the targeted country is making "weapons of mass destruction" and must be stopped NOW before it uses them!

This has been done before with Iraq. It is presently being done with Iran.

How many times can the same transparent propaganda ploy fool the population of a great power that is armed to the teeth into imagining that they have the right to invade and conquer a smaller power that is really no threat to them at all, and that has not even thrown the first stone?????

As many times as the Germans were fooled by Hitler? Yeah, probably. People will believe anything if they hear it often enough in their own mass media...and they are already inclined to fear and distrust foreigners, specially if they're darker-skinned than Mr Average USA and have funny-sounding names that are hard for the mentally lazy to pronounce.