And why wasn't it prepared? Was it just to listen to the different parties?

Just saw on a Q&A program at CNN an interesting perspective about the US point of view towards the Middle East.
From 1947 to 1967, sympathy towards Israel was about 25% and the Arabs about 14%, from the US; after the 6 days war, it went up to higher than 50% towards Israel, shrank towards the Arabs. It wasn't because of WWII but because a small country could defeat numerous enemies while at the same time, the US was struggling in Vietnam. The US (and Europe too) admired them for their courage.
1967 isn't 2002 anymore.

As I've written earlier, Europeans have learned the oil crisis the hard way; there's the North Sea offshore oil platforms, an extensive wind power stations program is starting in Belgium, plus nuclear energy still there, energy conservation. In short: diversity.
And about 1€ per liter of gasoline in the car... (One gallon is 3.8 liters, I believe and 1$ is 0.87€). Definitely not a good idea to waste a lot of gasoline.

Raoul

Raoul