The Middle East - a mixture of oil and politics

The paper deals with the prospects for stability, in the context both of Middle East politics and of oil price and security. It shows that, because political stability is viewed differently by the actors who would be required to create the constituent parts of a stable political system, the likelihood of such stability is not high. In the case of oil, the objectives of the so-called producer/consumer dialogue are also different for both sides and a stable system is more likely to persist (although always subject to political upsets) as a result of whatever price management naturally evolves rather than through the creation of newly constructed mechanisms. (author)