[fabsroman]

Okay, I didn't have the time to read everything posted, but read enough to see where this thread is.

While on vacation this past week, I read a book called "1942" which us written by the author of Forest Gump and it chronicles the beginning of World War II and how the Allies turned the tide. At the end, it also gives a little history of what happened there. A lot of the war was for expansion. Japan needed more land and economic resources because it had out grown its island. Same thing with Germany, but probably not the case with Italy. Anyway, they were all headed to the middle east and the oil that they needed. Japan was negotiating with the US over 2 million gallons of high test airplane fuel when Pearl Harbor happened. So, we saved the middle east yet again, but took nothing. We didn't gain any land whatsoever.

In winning the war, we didn't gain anything and even helped pay to rebuild Europe and Japan. We helped rebuild Europe to help prevent Russia from getting a communist grip on Europe when nobody had jobs after the war. I don't know exactly why we helped Japan out, but maybe we felt sorry about dropping the bomb on it.

In the end, trying to take over any middle eastern country with oil would cause World War III for sure. War and politics aren't an easy thing.