I would add the actions of Freddie and Fannie, the Community Re-investment Act and Sub-Prime lending to the list. Greenspan is only one human... everyone makes mistakes... even he admited it.. still he probably did better than 99.9% of the rest of us would have.

Why was the Stock market booming in the 90's? Why were energy prices low? Was there a connection to the first gulf war which Kicked Saddam out of Kuwait? Imagine if we had not acted to put out all the oil fires left by his retreating army... The US does not live upon it's own resources.

You don't get to make decisions in a static world.. the world is dynamic.. and inter-connected.

Even today Iraq is the fifth largest supplier of Crude to the US..

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

Where will they be when we finally get the hole plugged in the gulf?  Any more deep water drilling or do you want to continue to pollute Canadian Tar sands...??  How about Brazil..?? want to go drill in water twice as deep as the gulf?

Like it or not.. the facts remain upon who has the energy to power the world's economies..

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2178rank.html