> I think he's saying that it can be harder to change cultures than it is to say, simply invade a country. The US rolled into Iraq with no problems at all, but how long would it take to truly change the people and culture? Would it even be possible?

Why would it be necessary? The West could easily get oil from iraq without any involvement of the Iraqi people.

I write "the west" because the US doesn't get much of its oil from the middle east and oil's fungibility is a US choice. Neither of those things are written in stone.

As a matter of policy, the US could decide that oil doesn't leave the western hemisphere and let the europeans, chinese, and anyone else who cared handle the middle east. The western hemisphere has more than enough resources to handle US needs and europe could decide to simply take the oil and ignore the people. There's not much that any of the middle eastern countries/peoples could do about that.