Saudi Arabia's main oil pipeline.
There was a war in Iraq where the central region of the country was where Sunni Sheiks lived. The greatest problem those communities had was water.
Saudi Arabia was a friend to the Sunnis in Iraq. During the Iraq war there was no interruption of oil exports. The gas high gas problems is nothing but opportunistic speculation. It is Wall Street and has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Americans and Europeans have been left stranded in their lives to 'pay the price' rather than have new technologies providing reasonable costs of living.
To the right are the lands where oil exists in the Middle East. The oil lands of the Middle East are in the middle of deserts NOT oceans or gulfs.
Below is BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill which continues to have oil deposits at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, in the wetlands along the Gulf Coast effecting fisheries, marine mammals and corals.
The difference between American oil and Saudi Arabian oil is grossly different. The petroleum industry causes explosions and spills. Their history is littered with it.
The offshore resources are may or may not be limited according to this illustration, but, offshore has high costs to the economy, regardless, of the liability of the oil companies to carry the responsibility for their disasters. There is a human cost to oil drilling including deaths. Those deaths are not exclusive to the rigs as both employees and subsequently a fisherman committed suicide when his livelihood was disappearing in front of his eyes. 
The land based oil fields in the USA are mostly tapped. There aren't new discoveries.
The American are not Saudis. They see the world differently. The culture is very different. A politician in the USA tries to make analogies that are inaccurate in painting a picture that the USA can drill its way out of the energy troubles facing the consumer. That is a lie. How long must the people of the USA listen to lies when their children's futures depend on otherwise.
We cannot afford another Deepwater Horizon and trusting the petroleum industry has PROVEN to be disasterous. We can't return to that. Alternatives, such as biofuels, is not only an answer, it is a reasonable answer and one that is sustainable. The petroleum industry in the USA is unsustainable and dangerous.
