What exactly are our national interests apart from Libyan and Nigerian oil?
Do you not think this is a little (or maybe very) naive? Is this not exactly the sort of attitude the CDS warned about, just before Christmas? You talk about the big wide world as if we have nothing to do with it old chap.
I'm presuming you have no interest in the price of your clothes, your fuel, your food, your electronics or your cheap chinese tat that all get shipped through the Gulf.
I'm also presuming you take delight in the prospect at the flood of class A drugs into your neighbourhood because we've given up the anti-drug trafficking mission. Or perhaps you prefer the thought of some terrorists holed up in some armpit of the world getting their hands on some rather destructive substances from a country that I won't name, but I'm sure would rhyme with shmorth Shmorea or Shmiran.
Obviously I've embellished some of the threats, but economic prosperity and world intervention, whether you like it or not, go hand in hand. We've moved far beyond the days of mercantalist economics and are now more dependent on the rest of the world than ever...do you not think its stability is necessary for our own prosperity? And do you not think, that as the 6th richest country in the world with resources that the vast majority of the world's countries could only dream of having, we should play our part in securing that stability? Even for our own selfish needs...