If Oil Prices Don't Rise, the Middle East Will Sink
By Roger Arnold
| Aug 13, 2016 | 12:00 PM EDT
The ongoing collapse in oil prices that began two years ago is setting the stage for a catastrophic situation in the Middle East if it continues. That catastrophe could come in three stages of war: civil war within the boundaries of each sovereign; war between sovereign states; and most broadly, for the intra-Islamic fight between the Sunnis and Shias to devolve into a war of finality between them, with one side vanquishing, conquering and perhaps even attempting to extinguish the other.
I first addressed the potential for oil prices to be caught in a secular decline and its implications shortly after the collapse in prices began in 2014 in the column, "Oil and the Limits to Growth."
Although the process I laid out has largely occurred over the past two years, one part of that process has glaringly not occurred, and has enormous implications for what happens from this point forward.
That issue is that U.S. alternative oil producers have not been driven out of business to the extent I envisioned was probable; not even close.
http://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/08/13/2016/if-oil-prices-dont-rise-middle-east-will-sink