Saudi Arabia’s world oil leadership position is under duress. Although this huge Arabian Desert peninsula had been sparsely, tribally populated, when the Ottoman Empire was crumbling by the end of World War I, a combination of positive factors vaulted Saudi Arabia (named after its founder Ibn Saud) into a world oil power leadership position: 1) Five oversized oilfields in the early 1920’s, the largest ever up to that point, shot the Saudis into an oil leadership position, which it has never vacated. 2) By teaming up with the world’s largest American-dominated oil producers in the formation of the Arab/American Oil Company (Aramco), it gained political power from the recognition of incoming President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934. This relationship became so powerful that FDR, just before he died in 1945, issued a statement announcing King Ibn Saud as his chosen political leader for all “Mideast decisions,” in the World […]