Saudi Arabia has relentlessly increased domestic production and forced down prices, partly to continue its longstanding practice of reducing the oil price whenever the United States cranks up to reduce oil imports, and partly, in this case, to complicate the lives of the shale-oil extractors, who have relatively high production costs. But the apparently principal motive in the Saudi policy is to put such a rod on the backs of the Iranians and the Russians that they scale back their meddling in Syria, where the Saudis are committed to the overthrow of the Assad regime, and the closing of the spigot to the terrorist apparatus of both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia is also trying to squeeze Iran’s nuclear program, in the absence of any plausible action by the United States to stop it, and as a last play before the Israelis have, once again, to do the world’s dirty work for it and take down the Iranian nuclear development sites.
Saudi Arabia And Oil Prices
Steve is a long-time New Hampshire resident, blogger, and a member of the Board of directors of The 603 Alliance. He is the Managing Editor and co-owner of GraniteGrok.com, a former board member of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, and a past contributor to the Franklin Center for Public Policy.
