The Oil Follies? Our Fault

Forget speculators and the Saudis. When it comes to the price of oil, we have only ourselves to blame

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

King Abdullah just summoned everybody to Saudi Arabia to sort out the whole oil business, and the first humiliation for the U.S. is that we came running. Then again, this is old news. For 35 years, since the first oil crisis, we've been treating OPEC, and especially the Saudis, like friendly members of the Society of Important Countries rather than the criminal conspiracy they are. The second humiliation is that the meeting didn't work. The small gratuity offered by the Saudis of a modest increase in pumping had virtually no effect on the price of oil, which remained above $130 per...

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