Fear of being overpowered, greed, lust for power, nationalism, ethnic scorn, and past wars are of course common seeds of confrontation. However, they all pale compared to the need for all countries, including the U.S., Europe, China and India, to have guaranteed access to the world’s largest oil and gas reserves to meet their domestic demand. And competition for control of these reserves, the bulk of which are in the Persian Gulf and Venezuela, is growing.