@beso
You are viewing Winston's actions with 21st C. hindsight goggles. He was a product of the Imperialist age: he put our nation's needs ahead of countries who had neither need for, nor interest in, mineral deposits under the barren desert lands that belonged to them.
Imperialism is just a high-tech version of feudalism, I'll grant you but we let their ruling class get rich on the proceeds, in the end, didn't we? What's wrong with that?
I have dim recollections (pun, pun) of 1973. I think that was when they twigged that they were getting ripped off and hiked the prices. They can turn the dupply rate up or down, at will, to get us all to play nicely. If American pump prices got anywhere near as high as ours, they'd probably riot.