Saturday 1 November 2014

Can Saudi Arabia survive the US oil assault?



Many had wondered why Saudi Arabia was supporting United States in keeping oil prices high. Now it has become evident that the US wanted to keep crude oil prices high as it was working on shale oil extraction. In this exercise first Iraq was encouraged to attack on Iran and war continued for almost a decade. Then sanctions were imposed on Iran to curb its oil export.

Turmoil was created in Iraq in the name of regime change to disrupt its oil export. Libya was also a victim of oil vultures. And the latest drama is being staged with the connivance of ISIS. Many of the countries are facing US bombardment in the name of demolishing ISIS hideouts. Have the Muslims ever bothered to find out the rise of ISIS, its funding and colossal military might. The reply is simple ISIS has not emerged overnight but part of the Zionist agenda to destroy Muslim countries, particularly those producing oil and Saudi Arabia is the prime target

Ironically Saudi Arabia still suffers from a dilemma that United States is its best friend. Saudis have been completely brain washed as they say ‘Iran is a bigger enemy as compared to Israel’.  This perception has also enabled the US to sell billions of dollars arms to Saudi Arabia. Oil prices were kept high to facilitate Saudi Arabia to earn more of petrodollars that were taken back as price of arms. Saudis were annoyed when the US refused to attack Syria, mainly due to the opposition of Russia. The breach between Saudi Arabia and the US further widened after the super powers arrived at an agreement to ease sanctions on Iran.

While Arabs remained engrossed in their petty matters, the work on shale oil continued at full swing and the result is that today United States has emerged as world’s largest oil producers. This means that not only the biggest oil market will be lost but United States will also emerge as the biggest competitor of Saudi Arabia in the global oil market. The signs of oil glut have already started appearing,  oil prices have plunged substantially and the fall is likely to continue because the US does not seem in a mood to curtail shale oil production.

The US cronies have already started putting pressure on OPEC to curtail production to resist further fall in oil prices. As opposed to this Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil supplier among OPEC members seems adamant to retain its share in the global market by selling oil to Asian buyers at a discount. This is killing two birds with one stone, retain its petro dollar income and snatch share of Iranian market, Iran supplies oil to Asian buyers that include China, India, Korea and Japan.

In the prevailing scenario it seems that Saudi Arabia has no solution, except drift with the tide. If it considers that it has got the muscles and can also afford to flow against the tides, it has to let oil prices slip to a level where production of shale oil becomes uneconomical.
It is true that in the short-term Saudi Arabia may emerge as the biggest looser and other OPEC members may not subscribe to the strategy. However, it is the question of collective survival of OPEC members who control 40 percent of global oil production.

Muslim countries, particularly Arab monarchs have to come out of ‘Iran phobia’ and identity their real enemies. They have wasted trillions of dollars in fighting US proxy war and the time has come to protect the interest of Muslim collectively irrespective of which language they speak or sect they belong to. The enemies have prevailed over by deepening the sectarian divide and spreading animosity in the name of Islam. The enemies are trying to portray killing as prime mission of Islam, which is totally incorrect. Islam is religion of love and peace for all irrespective of faith, cast and creed.  



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