THE THIRD WAVE
If turning off the oil spigots for a few weeks in Iran could cause violence and chaos on gas lines in the United States, what is likely to happen, not only in the U.S., when the present rulers of Saudi Arabia are kicked off the throne? Is it likely that this tiny clique of ruling families, who control 25 percent of the world’s oil reserves, can cling to power indefinitely, while intermittent warfare rages between North andSouth Yemen nearby, and their own country is destabilized by floods of petrodollars, immigrant workers, and radical Palestinians? Just how wisely will the shell-shocked (and future-shocked) politicians in Washington, London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, or Tel Aviv respond to a coup d’etat, a religious upheaval, or a revolutionary uprising in Riyadh—let alone to the sabotage of the oil fields at Ghawar and Abqaiq?
How would these same overworked, nervously twitching Second Wave political leaders, East and West, respond if, as Sheikh Yamani predicts, frogmen were to sink a ship or mine the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, thereby blocking half the oil shipments on which the world depends for survival? It is scarcely reassuring to look at a map and note that Iran, barely able to maintain domestic law and order, sits on one bank of that strategically vital, all too narrow channel.
What happens, asks another chilling scenario, when Mexico begins in earnest to exploit its oil—and faces a sudden, overpowering influx of petro-pesos? Will its ruling oligarchy have the desire, much less the technical skills, to distribute the bulk of that new wealth to Mexico’s malnourished and long-suffering peasantry? And can it do so rapidly enough to prevent today’s low-level guerrilla activity there from exploding into a full-scale war on the doorstep of the United States? If such a war were to break out, how would Washington respond? And how would the huge population of Chicanes in the ghettos of Southern California or Texas react? Can we expect even semi-intelligent decisions about crises of such magnitude, given today’s disarray in Congress and the White House?
Economically will governments already incapable of managing macro- economic forces be able to cope with even wilder swings in the international money system, or with its complete breakdown? With currencies hardly under control, the Eurocurrency bubble still expanding unchecked, and consumer, corporate, and government credit ballooning, can anyone look forward to economic stability in the years ahead? Uiven skyrocketing inflation and unemployment, a credit «.-i ash, or some other economic catastrophe, we may yet see pi i vale armies in action.
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