Norbert Lipszyc nous adresse cet article, avec la note suivante :

"Ceci date déjà de 15 jours, mais reste d'actualité. Il semble que nos journalistes vedette, même ceux qui s'occupent d'affaires pétrolières, n'aient pas vu passer ce qui suit. Ils auraient alors cessé de mettre sur le compte d'un "embargo du pétrole pour faire pression sur Israël" la décision de Saddam Hussein de suspendre ses envois de pétrole. Ils se seraient rappelés que l'ONU a imposé à l'Irak, dans le cadre d'un échange "pétrole pour nourriture" un quota d'exportation et que ce pays utilise donc la conjoncture pour faire un peu grimper les prix. "


Best of the Web Today - April 3, 2002
By JAMES TARANTO

A quarter-century ago the Arab world retaliated against the U.S. for backing Israel by imposing an oil embargo, causing gasoline prices to skyrocket and disrupting the American economy. As we noted yesterday, Saddam Hussein has been making noises about a repeat performance. He's living in a dream world. As Dow Jones Newswires reports:

Arab states don't have the option of cutting off oil supplies to support the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel, because doing so would cut off oil revenue needed to fund any resistance, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said Tuesday in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde.

"It's the Arab countries that have the greatest need for their development," al-Faisal said. "If they want to reinforce in the face of Israeli aggression, they have no alternative but to continue to exploit petroleum and gas."

We've heard a lot of talk about the problem of America's "dependence" on Arab oil, but as al-Faisal's comments make clear, it is actually Saudi Arabia's layabout princes, along with other Arab dictators who sell or are subsidized by gulf oil, who are dependent on oil. And their market position isn't as strong as it once was; the New York Times (link requires registration) reports that "Russia overtook Saudi Arabia in the month of February as the world's largest producer." An Arab News article datelined gives more insight into the Saudi:

Renewed calls for "energy independence" especially in the US are being heard for sometime now aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. These rightwing voices have nothing to do with "energy security" or "economic security" and their only objective is to decrease the country's reliance on imports, especially from the Middle East. Being minority and jingoistic opinion, their effectiveness leading to a large-scale shift in energy markets can be shrugged off by the oil cartel.

Little cause for any concern notwithstanding, strategic thinking and futuristic planning calls on the oil-exporting countries for the consideration of possible disruption in the oil markets. If import cuts were to occur in any of the major oil-importing nations, among the OPEC, it will be the countries in the Middle East which will be singled out for segregation.

Who'd have thought, back in '74, that the Saudis would one day be trembling at the thought of an American oil embargo?