Page 405 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

402 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

based, and a high volume meant that output would still continue to be
substantial - as well as profitable, in view of the near doubling of oil prices. As
things turned out, even with a production cut which eventually reached 25 per
cent at least, Saudi Arabia’s oil output in the last quarter of 1973 was 3 per cent
higher than it had been in the last quarter of 1972.

So far as Western Europe and Japan were concerned the oil weapon was
designed to accomplish two general objects: firstly, to push the Europeans and
Japanese towards a pro-Arab stand or, failing this, to a neutral position in the
Arab-Israeli conflict; and, secondly, to arouse them to such a state of anxiety
over whether or not adequate supplies of oil would be forthcoming that they

would swallow without protest the simultaneous exorbitant increase in oil
prices. The panic with which Western Europe (with one or two honourable
exceptions) and Japan reacted to the oil restrictions could not have been more
gratifying to the Arabs. Public figures of high and low estate fell over them­
selves in their eagerness to affirm their understanding of and indignation at the
insupportable tribulations which had driven the Arab states to take up arms

against Israel. The air above the capitals of Europe positively vibrated with the
peal of platitudes about retribution and reconciliation and the trilling of
rondeaus to peace and justice. Leading the antiphony were Britain and France,
the two powers possessed of an implicit faith in their singular ability to get on

with the Arabs. Moreover, they had good cause to bend the knee gladly, for
they, along with Spain, had received assurances from one or another of the
Arab oil potentates that they would continue to receive their accustomed
supply of oil if they comported themselves properly. And so they did. Not
long after the outbreak of hostilities the British foreign secretary, Sir Alec
Douglas Home, announced the imposition of an embargo upon the shipment

of arms from Britain to the combatants, a measure which, although blandly
presented as fair and even-handed, happened, with agreeable fortuity, to bear
more heavily upon Israel than upon the Arab states. For France no comparable
step was necessary, since a virtual embargo upon the shipment of arms to Israel
had been in effect since the 1967 war. Thus, in the last week of October the
British prime minister, Edward Heath, was able to inform the House of

Commons, with ample satisfaction, that the oil supply position for the United
Kingdom was far from critical. . .
What was accorded less prominence was the undertaking which the Bnush
and French governments had given, in return, to those states which hadI pro­
vided the assurances of oil supplies (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu a 1

that they would not allow the re-export of oil elsewhere, least of al tot
Netherlands. If any oil was diverted to the Dutch, the British governmen
been warned, Britain would suffer an immediate 25 per cent cut in supp 1 •
was further made clear that all the EEC countries would incur the sam p >
if thev attempted to pool supplies to help the Dutch. However, much tho

the British and French governments would have preferred it oth