In the summer of 1972, when Sadat called for the manipulation of oil supplies for political purposes, Faisal was quick to disagree strongly. It was not only useless, he said, but “dangerous even to think of that.” Politics and oil should not be mixed. So Saudi Arabia had discovered for itself during the 1967 war, when it had cut its exports to no avail, except in terms of its own loss of revenues and markets. Faisal believed that the United States was unlikely to be affected by any cutoffs because it would not need Arab Gulf oil before 1985. “Therefore my opinion is that this proposal should
...more
