@Imadethisupwithnoforethought – While being technically true, that headline is also misleading. We import the crude, refine it, use some, and export some. It doesn’t mean that we just naturally possess more oil than we need. We had to buy it somewhere before we could refine it.
The pipeline was a way for Canadian tar sand oil to ooze its way down to the complex of refineries down in Texas and the central U.S., so it could be refined, and sold on the open market, just like all the other oil in the world. Oil is fungible. Once it’s refined into petroleum products, it’s like all other petroleum products. Nixing the pipeline doesn’t mean that we won’t buy Canadian oil – Canada and Mexico are still our top two sources of oil.
To answer the question, would we attack Canada to take their oil sands? It depends. As the world stands now, there are other ways to get oil. As long as we can keep buying it, even at higher prices, the international “peer pressure” as well as internal pressure means that we won’t attack the country that is probably our greatest ally in the world. I also think we’d start trying to dig out Colorado oil shale (which has about as much energy value as an equal amount of granola) or drilling ANWR (which has about seven months’ supply or so, last time I checked). But, and this is important, even oil shale and ANWR oil would be sold on the open market, because oil is like that.
What would cause us to attack Canada for oil in my opinion? It would have to be a Mad Max style of breakdown. We’d have to be so desperate for oil that we’re willing to be a pariah. People would have to be dying from lack of petroleum products.
There’s always a fringe element that wants us to control the world. But as long as there are other countries to attack, that have a supply of oil, and which are easier to find bald-faced excuses for (“They had WMDs! Honest!”) or for which it is easier to drum up public hatred or fear (“OMG, Islam!”), Canada is probably safe.