World

Possible Oil Embargo Open Thread

by mmk | January 5, 2009 at 01:05 am

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Reuters is reporting: "An Iranian military commander called on Islamic countries to cut oil exports to Israel's supporters in response to the Jewish state's offensive in Gaza, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday."

Readers should recall that this is similar to what happened in late 1973 in response to the Yom Kippur War thereby causing our first energy crisis.

Is this possible today? With OPEC nations in financial trouble due to oil's collapse in price, can they afford not to sell to Israel's supporters? After all, unless Saudi Arabia participated in this embargo -- it did in 1973 -- America mightn't be that impacted.

With that in mind, is this something to be concerned with, or just more hot air coming from Iran ?

Source: http://newsbusters.org/

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Uwe Paschen

at 01:17 on January 5th, 2009

I do not think that the OPEC nations are in financial trouble though, even with the low Oil prices at the moment.

poor oligarch (not verified)

at 05:55 on January 5th, 2009

Good stuff, in particular the background pointing to the 70's oil crisis.

"An Iranian military commander called..."

Well, s/he would, wouldn't s/he!

@ Paschen: Perhaps no trouble at the top, but followers of the world financial crisis might have noticed that even in these highly authoritarian autocracies, there are some signs of both 'middle-class revolt' and uprisings by workers (often Palestinians, Pakistanis and other economic migrants / 'guest workers')?