Carbon Democracy by Timothy Mitchell provides another piece of the puzzle. The international oil companies took big hits to their margins as oil producers nationalized in the early 70′s. Blaming the crisis on Arab politics allowed them to distract from the obscene margins they had previously been making. So they had an incentive to obfuscate what was really happening at OPEC, and the Saudi’s at the time had no lobbyists to represent them in Washington.
Carbon Democracy by Timothy Mitchell provides another piece of the puzzle. The international oil companies took big hits to their margins as oil producers nationalized in the early 70′s. Blaming the crisis on Arab politics allowed them to distract from the obscene margins they had previously been making. So they had an incentive to obfuscate what was really happening at OPEC, and the Saudi’s at the time had no lobbyists to represent them in Washington.