from "Securing the Gulf," in Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030701faessay15401/kenneth-m-pollack/securing-the-gulf.html
"But the United States is not simply concerned with keeping oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf; it also has an interest in preventing any potentially hostile state from gaining control over the region and is resources and using such control to amass vast power or blackmail the world.
"And it has an interest in maintaining military access to the Persian Gulf because of the region's geostrategically critical location, near the Middle East, Central Asia, eastern Africa, and South Asia.
"If the United States were denied access to the Persian Gulf, its ability to influence events in many other key regions of the world would be greatly diminished."
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