Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Well, it’s equally ridiculous to fret about the supply of oil coming from the Middle East stopping anytime soon.

As Michael Lynch writes in a great new column, “For Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, or Kuwait to give up pumping oil would be the equivalent of Microsoft boycotting the software business.”

A perfect example of this phenomenon is the Venezuelan revolution to overthrow anti-trade president Hugo Chavez. While there were many factors involved in his ouster, his using the national oil company as a tool for political manipulation — denying much-needed revenue to that country’s poor people — was certainly a big one. A political leader may get away with oil boycotts for a while, but not for long.

In fact, the only thing that can really endanger U.S. access to Mideast oil — as I’ve said before — is heightened political tensions. You know, like threatening to invade a Middle Eastern country and overthrow its leader, or continuing to involve yourself in a territorial dispute that has no impact on your country’s security. Not that our country’s wise leaders would ever do anything like that.