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An Historical What-If

So anti-war libertarians generally believe that it was our involvement in Gulf War I that pissed Osama bin Laden off enough to make us the object of his ire (we had been quasi-allies with him, after all, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). It was American troops in the Muslim holy land that made us the focus of his anger.

Most libertarains opposed Gulf War I, under the theory that it wasn't in our national security interest. The typical consevative, pro-war response to this is that beyond Kuwait, Saddam had his eye on Saudi Arabia. And if we hadn't intervened, he may have invaded his way to a significant share of the world oil market.

The libertarian response to this is "so what?" Merely controlling a significant share of the world's oil supply means nothing. Sitting on oil bestows no power whatsoever. It isn't until you sell the oil that you begin to accumulate the spoils of owning it. And so Saddam would still have no choice but to sell oil to the United States for the simple fact that we are the world's biggest consumer of oil -- there's no benefit in refusing to sell to us.

But I think you can take this a step further.

Not only would Saddam's invasion (and, for the sake of argument, let's say conquer) of Saudi Arabia have not presented a crisis for the United States, it may have presented an opportunity. Several, actually.

Up until 1990 or so, Saddam Hussein was, for all intents and purposes, an ally....

...If we had stayed out of Gulf War I, and the predictions of Saddam's invasion of Saudi Arabia proved accurate, we would today be dealing with a brutal dictator with whom we enjoy nominally friendly relations -- really not all that different than our current relationship with the Saudis. And given that Saddam was a secularist ruler, we'd probably have that relationship minus the Wahabbist fundamentalism we have to put up with with the current Saudi regime.