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June 23, 2008

Exclusive: OPEC: A Recurring Nightmare

Ruth King

OPEC, acronym for The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was founded in Baghdad on September 14th, 1960, ostensibly to bargain and negotiate the sale of oil to the West by Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

Here is how they describe themselves on their official website: "The OPEC Member Countries coordinate their oil production policies in order to help stabilise the oil market and to help oil producers achieve a reasonable rate of return on their investments. This policy is also designed to ensure that oil consumers continue to receive stable supplies of oil."

They sound just like another commercial fraternal organization, but with the exception of Venezuela and a bizarre on again/off again romance with Ecuador, all member states are Muslim and the bulk of the oil reserves, estimated to be more than three quarters of the entire world's, are located in the Arab Middle East.

In the 1970s, OPEC nations began to wield political influence, and in 1973 they added Syria and Egypt to their cartel by creating OPAEC (Organization of Arab Oil Producing Nations). Uniting them was an abiding hatred of Israel and a desire to target all nations which had supported Israel during the nearly devastating sneak attack in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Their weapon was an oil embargo one month after Israel reversed its early setbacks and maintained control of the Sinai Peninsula and encircled Egypt's Third Army.

The price increases and the decrease in production created economic dislocations and inflation in all the targeted nations. Rationing was instituted as Americans idled on long lines waiting for the "odd/even days" at the pumps. However, European nations responded with alternatives ranging from windmills to nuclear power. Only the United States failed to produce a serious energy policy.

President Richard Nixon announced an initiative called Project Independence whose stated goal was to achieve energy independence by 1980. His presidency was already threatened and industry, Congress, scientists and technology did not respond to the challenge. By the time Gerald Ford replaced Nixon, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger bowed to OPEC threats and pummeled Israel into accepting the aggressors' terms for a truce with Egypt. It was not his finest hour but then, did he ever have a finest hour?

Jimmy Carter (whose own gas emissions could power a small city) did actually confront the issue in 1977. Here is what he said on April 18th, 1977:

"With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly....... We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us....... The 1973 gasoline lines are gone, and our homes are warm again. But our energy problem is worse tonight than it was in 1973 or a few weeks ago in the dead of winter. It is worse because more waste has occurred, and more time has passed by without our planning for the future. And it will get worse every day until we act...... must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. .....We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy."

Nonetheless, he instituted economically devastating "profits taxes" added solar panels and wood stoves to the White House, and generally produced no results.

Just before Carter mercifully lost his bid for re-election, America confronted a second energy crisis....the 1979 embargo brought about as a result of the fall of Shah Reza Pahlavi, and the takeover of Iran by the mullahs and Ayatollah Khomeini.

Americans idling engines on long lines for the second time in seven years blamed the oil companies instead of OPEC, and the politicians did as they always do: they proposed rationing and, in fact, coupons bearing the picture of George Washington were printed and issued but never used.

Now, it got interesting. People bought smaller and more fuel efficient cars and furnaces, and by 1980 the West appeared to be taking energy independence seriously and began explorations in Prudhoe Bay, the North Sea, and new markets were found in Mexico. Oil prices began a six year decline leading to a 46% drop in 1986. But then, Americans got complacent again and the Saudis began to open another front against the West.

By September 1990, the media was talking about $40 a barrel for oil and home heating oil and gasoline prices began to hit record highs. Again, OPEC was on a roll, but this time they had successfully embarked on a systematic "buying" of American diplomats and former legislators who were happy to shill for them for big bucks.

Among them were Congressman Paul Findley, Republican of Illinois who is head of a "think tank" The Council for the National Interest, among whose "thinks" is hatred for Israel; Edward Walker a former ambassador to Egypt and the United Arab Emirates; Raymond Close formerly station chief of the CIA in Saudi Arabia; Eugene Bird former counselor to the United States Embassy in Saudi Arabia; James Akins a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia who stated right after 9/11:" The Arabs have a record of religious tolerance which is not equaled or even approached by any European country."

Even former Senator and candidate for President Bob Dole gets money to lobby for Dubai; and Madeleine Albright (former Secretary of State), former Rep. Tom Downey (D.-N.Y.) and Carol Browner (who served as director of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Clinton Administration) have all been hired by the UAE. And who will ever know how much the Saudis and Emirates have contributed to the Clinton Library?

In an act of dazzling effrontery, only six months after September 11, 2001, Saudi Arabia, where almost all the terrorists were born, bred, educated, funded and encouraged, actually floated a so-called "peace plan" for the Middle East. It was nothing more than another "Israel gives a lot and gets nothing and Arabs give nothing and get a lot" deal but it elicited gushing praise and enthusiasm and a visit to the Crawford Ranch.

Saudi Arabia and OPEC cohorts don't just hold us over a barrel of oil. They fund and control radicalized Middle East departments in major Universities throughout the nation; fund maddrassas where hatred for the West and the "infidels" is core curriculum; they openly support terrorists while they buy up business and heart and minds in America; cruises transporting gullible Americans routinely stop in Abu Dhabi where passengers gush about their hospitality without a moment's thought to why fuel prices have double the cost of their passage; so called "culture festivals" in these oppressive regimes attract hundreds of Americans including prominent Jews (such as the wife of human rights activist Elie Wiesel); and, most appalling, even Mortimer Zuckerman, who is a former President of the largest pro-Israel organization known as the President's Conference, is now happily embarked on a major business venture with Dubai-based Meraas Capital LLC.

And here we are with oil hitting new highs and no alternatives. As for the candidates? Obama is incoherent and McCain? Well before he was for drilling and nuclear power, he was against it.

Congress? Well, so far the dim bulbs there have come up with nothing better than the "massive energy bill" of 2005" which will phase out the incandescent bulb over the next dozen years.

If past is precedent, and America shows true grit, OPEC will lower the price slightly to lull is into doing nothing.

That will be a resounding victory for the thugs at OPEC and a nightmare for America.

Ruth S. King is a freelance writer who writes a monthly column in OUTPOST, the publication of Americans for a Safe Israel. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.

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