the war that triggered the oil embargo against the west was the
1973 Yom Kippur war- when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel and came close to defeating it. The Israeli forces were overrun but held on and then cut off the Egyptian army. It was unlikely that the US would have invaded the region - because the Soviets made it clear that if the US became involved so would they. In fact it was one of the few times since Kennedy's assasination that US forces around the world were put on increased alert.

Of course if the USSR had been involved it would have been WW3.

the Arab oil states who controlled OPEC began the embargo because they were angry at the West's support of Israel and also because of another humiliating defeat of Arab armies (which could have been much worse had not the US and UN stepped in to broker a ceasefire)

the tendency of these discussions is to look at what the US did, but most people here seem to ignore that there was a cold war going on,
and both superpowers played each other off all around the world.

America and the threat of retaliation is the only thing that kept the
Soviets from overrunning the rest of Europe. My father who was in the Czech army had orders to take over German printing plants to print propaganda in the event of an invasion.

I doubt if would have been necessary to invade the Mideast to get a hold of oil as there were other options - namely Nigeria, and Venezuela. (which is precisely why they havent been able to organize another embargo - plus the fact that they need the money)

(aside from alternative energy sources - there are still vast reserves
in the Alberta Tarsands (more than Saudi Arabia) they are just more expensive to extract)