ABSTRACT
A quick review of circumstances that have influenced petroleum prices since the early 1970s indicates that political events in the Middle East have affected oil price volatility and, at times, substantially increased those prices. According to conventional wisdom in the West, oil prices went up in 1973 after the October “Arab” oil embargo. They did so again in 1979 after the Iranian revolution, and continued to increase in 1980, when Iraq attacked Iran and started a war that lasted eight years. And the prices jumped yet again when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
