As Gorman already pointed out, the US doesn't destabilise or invade a country because it has oil reserves which the US wants, it's because these countries want to sell oil for other currencies than the dollar. A quick summary of a thread I made earlier, but was for some reason deleted:
1945: After WW2, the US dollar was set as the world reserve currency which means that basic goods such as oil, wheat, ... were all priced in dollars on the international market. All of this paper money was printed by the US, no presses left the country. Of course, this gave the US a significant advantage on the market. The US could, in theory, print its own money and trade it off for goods on the international market. To prevent this, the US promised to all nations that their dollars would be exchangable for gold at a rate of 1234.5 dollars per kilo. This is the Bretton Woods system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system
1970s: It becomes clear that the US has pumped massive amounts of money into the Vietnam war, but conditions for Average Joe aren't deteriorating in the homeland. Some countries suspect that the US has been printing out their own money without having the necessary gold in stock.
1971: France has enough and decides to exchange all of its money into gold by the rate which everyone agreed on in '45. Nixon refuses. Not only does he refuses France their gold, he just scraps the whole Bretton Woods system. Nobody can exchange the dollar for gold anymore. The dollar has, essentially, become nothing but a piece of paper (or cotton, if you will). The USA had effectively robbed the whole western world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock
Now why is the USA still used as a currency today? Why didn't the allies just abolish the dollar after this terrible scandal hit the news?
After the Nixon Shock, Nixon began traveling all oil-exporting countries, beginning with Saudi-Arabia. He offered them this: 1) you only accept dollars anymore and 2) All the profit you make goes back to the US, in exchange for military protection. All of them agreed. This is how Nixon kept the "artificial dollar" running: he created the demand for it himself.
So what you have now: Everybody needs the US dollar if they want oil. But the dollar isn't actually worth anything and the US can just go on and print it for themselves. Now all nations need to send physical goods to the US in return for an imaginary currency.
1996: Iraq is recovering from the gulf war. The "Oil For Food Programme" is started. Nations can now buy oil in exchange for physical goods such as well, food. Basically they can now buy oil for something that isn't a dollar. This was bad news for the US, and in 2003 Iraq was invaded. What was the first thing that happened after the war had ended? The OFFP was abolished and nobody could buy oil for anything other than the dollar anymore, despite an economical loss compared to the OFFP for the country itself.
http://www.economist.com/node/2618260
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme
2008: Iran: something I'm sceptical out myself, haven't done enough research yet: the "2008 Submarine Cable Disruption": damage to submarine communication cables was caused. Some say this is because the US wanted to prevent Iran from selling Oil for Gold/Yen. Well, Iran did it anyway and they received some sanctions by the US (which they completely ignored, they're still selling oil for gold today). Problems I have with this "theory": cuts in cables happen all the time, and if the US really wanted to stop it, they terribly failed at that, they could've been more efficient and have done something else. The cause of the cuts is still unsure, they were probably caused by bad weather or ships' anchors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_su...ble_disruption
2011: Libya is in a civil war. Rebels are supported by the US, the regime by Russia. Gaddhaffi wanted to establish a Pan-African dinar, basically a pure gold currency. He wanted to sell oil for this currency: oil for gold. Gaddhaffi was soon executed by the rebels.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72T6H220110330
2013: Civil war in Syria, rebels supported by the US, regime by Russia. Syria has a mutual defense agreement with Iran. Syria itself hasn't tried to sell oil for gold yet, but Iran, which is preparing for war now, has.
I use Wikipedia as a source because it's good if you want a quick summary of a major event in a short glimpse. If you don't trust wikipedia as a valid source, just google the topic at hand, you'll be sure to find other, more trustworthy (and lengthy) sources that will summarize the facts for you.
Last edited by Arglax; Aug 18, 2013 at 02:34 PM.