The return of the oil weapon

I suppose it was only a matter of time, given the fierceness of the attack and the total unrepentantness of the Israelis, that someone has mentioned the oil weapon in response to the Israeli invasion of Gaza. But although it makes for a fairly good sound bite on Al Jazeera, I am fairly certain no one is going to take Bahraini parliamentarians or Iranian IRGC officials very seriously on this.

The evolution of oil weapon rhetoric is somewhat interesting, however. After 1973, even talking of using the oil weapon became somewhat taboo despite the fact that the oil shock following the Yom Kippur War did a lot to establish the Saudis on the international stage as a power player. Still, conventional wisdom in Washington since then has been that the Saudis would never unleash such a terrible weapon again. The argument goes something like this: the Saudis understand that an oil embargo would hurt them as much as it would hurt consuming nations and they wouldn't want to risk their relationship with the US over it. That logic prevailed more or less until the early part of the Bush administration.

Then, in 2002, the Israelis invaded Jenin in the West Bank. Things had been looking fairly bleak for the Palestinians since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000 but the Jenin incursion was different. With the pervasiveness of Al Jazeera's cameras, Israeli actions, which sometimes resulted in the deaths of civilians, including children, were captured and broadcast on the evening news. The Bush administration was fairly tone deaf to these actions (one might think history was repeating itself today), causing a certain amount of consternation in Gulf capitals. And for the first time since the 1970s, the words oil and foreign policy were crossing the lips of important and public Saudis. Saud al-Faysal in a press conference actually said that oil should be used to defend the interests of Arab citizens. Not exactly a complete unsheathing of the weapon but certainly closer than they had come in close to two decades. Other members of the Saudi government, including Oil Minister Ali Naimi, were quick to dismiss Saud's comments and pledged to keep the oil market well supplied.

Still, after 2002, one can't help but wonder if the Saudis could be provoked again. US Middle East peace policy has swung so wildly out of balance that the Bushies can barely bring themselves to call for restraint today. And while no one, with the possible exception of Nasrallah, is a fan of Hamas these days, it's hard to watch the ever escalating death tolls coming out of Gaza and Israel's refusal to even entertain the idea of a ceasefire and believe that no one is willing to show a little muscle to end the crisis. Still, the oil weapon is at best a deeply flawed option. It presumes that the US would hurt immediately and would be willing to put a halt to Israel's actions. Both assumptions are questionable at best.