Oil and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East

The new strategy of the U.S. administration seeks to reduce federal budget deficit by slashing defense spending which requires both the withdrawal from Iraq as well as the reduction of dependence on Middle Eastern oil. This is precisely what the new strategy has achieved in recent years as the U.S. managed to cut its energy imports from Gulf countries in addition to reducing its military budget to almost three per cent of GDP for the 2015 fiscal year. These figures nearly amount to the same proportion of defense spending during the Clinton era following the collapse of the Soviet Union before skyrocketing to 8 per cent of GDP during George W. Bush’s presidency. The current reduction would not have been feasible if it hadn’t been for the repositioning of U.S. troops which included the withdrawal from Iraq and the re-enforcement of the military presence in the region of the Pacific. The U.S. army also adopted a new military strategy grounded on encirclement and sanctions (starvation), the employment of drones and use of surveillance (evidenced by the NSA). The question that begs to be asked, then, is why has the U.S. discovered ISIS all of a sudden and sent its troops back to the battlefield? Has the U.S. changed its strategy and alliances? And what’s the relation that oil bears to all of this?