If the world were black and white and the only choices were stop buying oil completely or continue the way we currently do things that would be true. But the world isn't like that.
Contrary to what Political Pundits might say our leaders really aren't idiots. For several decades now we've been pursuing alternate fuel sources (which should start to slowly reduce the amount of oil we purchase) while denouncing foreign oil use (which should subtlety undermine regimes that have no real plan beyond "make money off oil").
Again history provides the perfect model here. The U.S. won the cold war not by drastic actions but by slowly undermining the USSR's political system with political rhetoric while doing everything we could to create an economic environment that endorsed the ideals we hoped they would emulate
Are you kidding? Our leaders have done no such thing and if they had, they really are idiots because they have been stunningly unsuccessful on both.
I don't think the USSR has much to teach us about the middle east, the situation is completely different. And the USSR was never a vassal state - indeed it's probably the only other country that could be considered an equal to the USA in recent history, along with China. So it's really quite an inappropriate comparison to make.
But I wonder if, long term, the USA really "won" in the first place. Remember "the only way to win is not to play". Well the Russians just decided not to play - or were unable to continue, at any rate. And whose blood is being spilled in Afghanistan these days?
Anyway, I wasn't intended to start a futile political argument, so let's agree to disagree : D
Isn't this imperialist thinking of the very worst type?
Like in all things I defer to the superior words of the masters:
"It is as you say, of course," Shoum said smoothly. "It is simply that, from a further perspective, one cannot but recognise that these very rules I allude to are set out so with precisely such an idea of justice at their core. We seek to be just to the peoples in our charge and those that we mentor by, usually, declining the always obvious option of facile intervention. One might intervene and interfere at every available opportunity and at every single instant when things did not turn out as any decent and reasonable creature would like. However, with every intervention, every interference - no matter how individually well-meant and seemingly right and proper judged purely on its own immediate merits - one would, subtly, incrementally but most certainly remove all freedom and dignity from the very people one sought only to help."