Everyone likes to point at President Obama and say that he doesn’t have a strategy for the Middle East. Well, to be fair, George W. Bush only had a strategy for going into the Middle East. It was pretty obvious that W had no idea how to get out of the Middle East. But that could be to W’s credit. Why? Because maybe W is smarter than we gave him credit for being. Maybe W realized that we can never pull out of the Middle East. Maybe W’s plan for the Middle East was more comprehensive than we realize.

The cold, hard truth is that we are now at war with two radical Islamic factions in the Middle East and that number could escalate over time. ISIS (or ISIL as Obama and his cronies insist on calling it) is joined by The Khorasan in a battle for which group hates the U.S. the most. The third entry in this contest is a group called The Al-Nusra Front. Get used to these names because you will be seeing them a lot over the coming months.

Which group poses the biggest threat to the United States? The biggest direct threat to the future of the United States comes from China. But even that threat is waning as Som-Kooky Guy in North Korea keeps forcing China to avert its eyes towards the Korean Peninsula to prevent a nuclear warhead from going off. The problems with North Korea are deep because the entire population is brainwashed into believing that Kooky Jong-Un is God and they would all die for him. So if Kooky decides to bust out with the war stick, no one really knows what will happen. China has to keep an eye on this idiot or else the entire Asian continent could disappear by next week.

So, back to our original question. Can one of these radical Islamic groups destroy America? Probably not. However, ISIS has been extremely active in setting up bases in Mexico and attempting to make inroads over the Mexican-American border. If Kooky decides to start sending missiles to ISIS in parts to Mexico, things could get very ugly.

So, what do we do? Invade Mexico? All of this would be a lot easier if the United States were an island nation like Japan or an on an island continent like Australia. The Mexican border is a big distraction and it takes up resources that could be used in fending off radical Islamic terrorists. The Nazis tried to bring troops up through Mexico and so have several others of our enemies. So far, nothing has worked. But times are changing.

What started all of this? Why aren’t radicals from the Middle East trying to topple Russia? After all, Russia invaded Afghanistan and held Afghanistan for a decade. The Soviet army committed atrocities against the Afghan people that somehow got swept under the rug. Some say that the Middle Eastern extremists leave Russia alone because Russia buys their oil. Not only is that not true, but it is way off the mark. But don’t we buy their oil as well? Now it is time for a little dose of American reality.

The United States imports more oil from Canada than it does from the Persian Gulf. Less than half of our imported oil comes from all OPEC nations combined. We actually supply about 40 percent of our own oil and that number could be higher if we wanted it to be. China, on the other hand, gets more than half of its oil imports from the Persian Gulf. Russia has its own oil and does not import much at all. As a matter of fact, Russia exports oil and we actually get around five percent of our imports from Russia.

Oil is the lifeblood of emerging nations all over the world. The United States has known that for a very long time. Initially, we got a large portion of our oil from the Middle East. But as oil exploration stepped up in the United States, we started to find our own oil and relied less on the Middle East and other sources.

So why do we spend so much money and time in the Middle East? We have, for reasons I still do not understand, a very strong bond with Israel that we are committed to maintaining. We give Israel money and military hardware and, in return, Israel gives us things to worry about. We regularly scold Israel for their aggressive actions but, if you have noticed, we don’t do a lot to bring peace to Israel and Palestine. We negotiate treaties that last for a year or two, but we never put boots on the ground or blow up buildings from the sky.

But when some other Middle Eastern country causes us problems, we are in there blowing stuff up and making a mess. Why? Because oil is power and we cannot afford to allow oil to fall into the hands of terrorists. If oil fell into the hands of terrorists, then oil revenue would start funding a real war against the United States and that would be trouble.

The notion that we are fighting in the Middle East because we want the oil for ourselves is, in my opinion, incorrect. What we are doing is trying to make sure that terrorists do not profit from oil revenue because the first thing terrorists will do is point big and ugly weapons at the United States and we don’t want to have to turn the Middle East into a glass parking lot.

Why do extremists in the Middle East hate the United States and not Russia? You can put any kind of mask on it you want, but Russians do not have freedom. If W got one thing right it was his notion that extremists hate our freedom. They want to destroy our freedom and create an oppressive world society. Since Russia is already oppressive, the extremists tend to leave Russia alone. Plus, no terrorist really wants to piss off Vlad. He is not one to be fooled with.

So we go to war because, in all of the years that we have been dealing with the centuries of bad blood in the Middle East, we have never had a comprehensive plan to keep peace in that region. We need peace in the Middle East to prevent the oil revenue from getting into the hands of the extremists. If the extremists get the oil revenue, then we will be fighting for our survival on our own soil.

Americans have fought many wars over the centuries, but we have only fought a small handful on our own soil. We don’t want war on our own soil. We don’t want our country turned into the kind of turmoil we see in the Middle East. So we go to the Middle East to stop extremists from upsetting the apple cart. But, in the end, without a plan we are just wasting our time.

We will never win Middle East Whack-A-Mole (knock down one terrorist group and another pops up) without a real plan. And without a real plan for the Middle East, the problems are only going to get worse. That is why our next president needs to either be an expert at foreign policy, or a military expert. Since no one with those credentials is running for 2016, things will probably get ugly.

Colin Powell, where are you when we really need you?

Nick Oliver is a Niagara County resident who has never really played whack-a-mole. His column appears every Wednesday thanks to the patience of the editorial staff at ENP.

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