Of course its about the oil

In response to a couple of e-mails: Of course this war (these wars?) is about the oil. It is the only reason this region is drawing our strategic interest. If Russia was making a drive for a southern port, that, too, would make the region important. Absent either of those two facts, Southwest and Central Asia would be geopolitical backwaters.

I am not a politician, so I can say it out loud: The most important reason to be engaged in this region is because of the energy resources there. Everything else is a distant 2nd place. And 2nd place, as Blake (Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross) would say, 2nd place is steak knives.