1977/01/01 by John C. Campbell
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · Energy · #Natural Resources and Economic Development #Socioeconomic Development in MENA #Global Energy Security and Policy
paper · doi:10.2307/20039808
The 1973 Middle East oil embargo resulted in a changed relationship between some oil-producing countries and some oil-consuming countries. It has raised to a new status Iran and Saudi Arabia, who have oil in quantity, and who have set out to translate it into various tangible and intangible attributes of power. The practice of independent diplomacy and the knowledge of the relationship of oil to political power did not come overnight to Iran or to Saudi Arabia. Both had traditions that made a policy of self-assertion quite natural once the means were at hand to carry it out. But the experience of the two countries has been different, and each is considered separately in this paper. Iran and Saudi Arabia, with their unprecedented oil income, have set ambitious goals and have begun to move toward them. They are speaking with a stronger voice in regional and world affairs, and they are being listened to. Their limitations and uncertainties are discussed in detail. Relationships that the USA has made with Middle East countries are of concern to other nations of the world. The author says he has argued that producer--consumer relations ''rest on a situation of fragility on each side .more » . . The oil producers cannot push the industrial countries to the wall without doing great harm to themselves. The latter cannot use force to seize the oil wells, or economic warfare to bludgeon the producers into submission without upsetting many applecarts, including their own.'' (MCW)« less