An oil shock would rattle the entire world’s economies

The oil price, in dollar terms at least, is now the highest it has been since 1990. It was soaring oil prices that tipped the world into three of the last four world recessions — the early ’70s, the early ’80s and the early ’90s — so there is an obvious concern. Add in the fact that the two countries with the largest oil reserves, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, are not in the most stable condition.

The fall of the House of Saud.

Americans have long considered Saudi Arabia the one constant in the Arab Middle East–a source of cheap oil, political stability, and lucrative business relationships. But the country is run by an increasingly dysfunctional royal family that has been funding militant Islamic movements abroad in an attempt to protect itself from them at home.