Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)

OPEC: Twenty-Five Years of Prices and Politics, (Cambridge Energy series.) by Ian Skeet
Review by: Michael B. Bishku
Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 2 (December 1989), pp. 247-249
Published by: Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)
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 Modern History, Political Science, Economics

lower educational and socio-economic status of Oriental Jews has stimu

lated radicalization in their ranks. More importantly, it is the young whose

thinking has been systematically shaped by the Zionist belief system who

lean toward the right.

Stewart Reiser discusses the role played by Israel's religious parties,

particularly Mafdal, in foreign policy-making. Ehud Sprinzak analyzes the

role of the radical religious movement Gush Emunim. Sprinzak informs us

that the influence Gush Emunim exerts by far exceeds its size. Adopting a

"messianic and fundamentalist" ideology, the members of Gush Emunim

regularly engage in acts of vigilantism against Palestinians. Aaron Rosen

baum discusses yet another Israeli extremist party, Tehiya, whose goal is to

engineer the annexation of the West Bank by creating "irreversible" "facts"

through the establishment of settlements on confiscated Palestinian lands.

In her "Israeli Public Opinion on Peace Issues," Gloria Falk attributes

to the worsening economic hardships the increase, not the dominance, of

Israelis who do not object to putting a freeze on the building of settle

ments. Marver H. Bernstein links the establishment of the National Unity

Government in 1984 to the widening political rift among the Israeli public

following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Israeli National Security Policy is the product of the authors' philo

sophical orientation. To them, peaceloving Israel is coping with security

concerns while surrounded by hostility-driven Arab neighbors. Palestinians

perpetrate terrorism. Israeli militarism is unavoidable retaliation.

Bernard Reich, for example, ignoring the thoroughly documented infor

mation concerning the pre-1948 war arrangements between Zionist leaders

and King Abdullah of Jordan to consolidate the new status quo in the

region, tells us that Israel in 1948 was attacked by Arab armies whose

objective was the destruction of the newly-erected state. The objective of

the war was, in fact, to contain Palestinian resistance. The commander of

the Arab Legion in 1948 was none other than the British Glubb Pasha.

On the whole, the book offers useful insights regarding the internal

instability of the Israeli political structure. However, in its treatment of

the question of Israeli security, the objective reader should be alert to the

philosophical bias of many of its authors.

Hisham H. Ahmed

Florida International University

OPEC: Years of Prices and Politics,

Twenty-Five by Ian SKEET.
(Cambridge Energy series.) xii + 200 pages, tables, map, appendices, notes,
bibliography, index. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York
1988. $29.95.
This book is the most recent of a number published since the mid-1980s

dealing with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, but,

MESA Bulletin 23 1989

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 Book Reviews

unlike other writers, Skeet makes no predictions on the fate of that orga
nization, which he describes as being in a "state of suspended animation"

(p. 222). His justification for writing this study is that as OPEC has reached
an "interval" in its history it seems an appropriate time for an assessment
of that organization's nature and its role in petropolitics and oil pricing
from its inception in 1960 to 1985, when OPEC appeared to abandon its
institutional objectives.
In examining the history of OPEC, Skeet uses a rather conventional

approach of chronologically dividing OPEC's development into two major

parts: its early years up until October 1973, when OPEC's members were

engaged in many negotiations with the oil companies resulting in OPEC

gaining full control over its oil pricing; and the years since 1973, when
OPEC administered prices, first from a position of strength and later from
a position of weakness. In the process of reviewing OPEC's development,
Skeet expounds upon its successes and failures in an objective fashion. As a
retired employee of Shell International, Skeet was able to set up a number
of "off the record" conversations with many individuals knowledgeable
about OPEC, including some of the organization's secretaries-general. In

addition, Skeet acknowledges the value of the Middle East Economic Survey
and the Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, oil trade journals that provided
information "without which the book could not have been written" (p. ix).
Despite having membership throughout the developing world, the con

trolling power in OPEC in its early years was Iran, which was later su

perseded by Saudi Arabia. OPEC got its inspiration from two people,
Perez Alfonzo of Venezuela and Abdullah Tariki of Saudi Arabia, who
were deeply concerned over the oil companies' great control over develop
ment and oil pricing; but it was Fuad Rouhani of Iran who guided OPEC,
as its secretary-general, in its early years, when the organization had only
minimal success, since the balance of power remained with the oil compa
nies. An excellent source for that time period remains Rouhani's A History
of O.P.E.C. (Praeger, 1971).
Certain political events such as the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (resulting
in the closing of the Suez Canal), Britain's decision to pull out of the
Persian Gulf, and the Libyan revolution of 1969 brought changes which had
the effect of shifting the balance of power to the governments belonging
to OPEC. While OPEC had a great deal of power during the 1970s, it
really did not act like the cartel envisioned by Perez Alfonzo; members
were operating in their own national interests, as they continue to do

today. During 1981, OPEC price unification was finally achieved. The
following year, the organization agreed to a program of quotas, with a

ceiling on production. However, OPEC's attempts at price management in

an environment less favorable than the 1970s proved to be a failure and
was abandoned in 1985.

MESA Bulletin 23 1989

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 Modern History, Political Science, Economics

Overall, this book has the right blend of detail and analysis, but Skeet's

style of writing is not always easily readable. He also cites Mohammed

Ahrari's work OPEC: The Failing Giant with the wrong title.
Michael B. Bishku

Kearney State College

UNIFIL: International Peacekeeping in Lebanon, 1978—1988, by

B J0RN SKOGMO. 279 pages, index, bibliography. Lynne Rienner Publishers,
Boulder 1989. $28.50.

Bj0rn Skogmo presents an authoritative study of the complicated and

often convoluted factors that shape the history of the United Nations
Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The first major peacekeeping force
was the Emergency Force set up to contain the 1956 Suez Crisis. Now,
peacekeeping forces are a recognized feature of the international scene,
even receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace. Not much is known, however,
about the structure and theory of peacekeeping. Furthermore, peacekeeping
operations have been evaluated with little insight into their functions and

underlying problems. This analysis adds to a growing literature (Higgins

1969; Pelcovitz 1984; Rikhye 1984; Trinka 1984; Wiseman 1983) on the
subject.
Bj0rn Skogmo's work provides a comprehensive and discerning account
of the political, military, diplomatic, legal, and practical conditions within
which UNIFIL operates. UNIFIL was established during a rare moment
of international consensus in a weekend session of the Security Council in
March 1978. The primary concern was to contain the crisis in southern
Lebanon provoked by an Israeli invasion and to keep it from escalating fur
ther. All other matters were secondary. The mandate given to UNIFIL—the
most complex and difficult peacekeeping operation ever, with the possible
exception of the Congo operation in 1960 to 1964—was to confirm the
withdrawal of Israeli forces, to restore international peace and security,
and to assist the government of Lebanon in restoring its effective authority
in southern Lebanon. The harsh realities of the situation were soon to un
dermine UNIFIL's task. The government of Lebanon was ineffectual; the

government of Israel resented the new peacekeeping force and was reluc
tant to cooperate with it; and the PLO, along with other armed forces in
the area, had their own intentions. Members of the Security Council were

unusually restrained in providing strong support for their new creation.

This study of the role of the Security Council as one of the principal actors
in the situation shows that more time for consultations in the beginning
would have been time well spent and might have saved time and prevented
problems in the deployment phase and in the later stages of the operation.

MESA Bulletin 23 1989

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