Arabist and professor at the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, Gilles Kepel holds the Middle East Mediterranean Chair at the École normale supérieure (ENS), and teaches at Sciences Po. He is a member of the High Council of the Institut du Arab World. The author of Out of chaos (Gallimard, 2018) analyzes the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the Middle East, in particular by the collapse of the price of oil.
Is the Covid-19 pandemic a game-changer in the Middle East?
The downward trend in oil prices is a structural phenomenon which precedes the Covid-19 pandemic, but which the latter has amplified by putting the globalized economy – very greedy in hydrocarbons – almost to a halt for a period and according to terms to date. If we validate the hypothesis that the oil era made the producing states of the Gulf persists the masters of the region and the central actors of the planet with the explosion of crude prices during the Israeli-Arab war of October 1973, it seems clear to me that, now, we are changing epochs. Not only because modern means of drilling make it possible to produce hydrocarbons almost everywhere – the Gulf retaining the quasi-monopoly of a very low extraction cost, below 10 dollars per barrel on average (9.1 euros) – but above all because the rentier economy can no longer ensure political equilibrium, in particular because of the demographic explosion in the region. This creates unbearable social tensions, of which the "Arab springs" of the beginning of the decade 2010 were the symptom, and which lead to civil wars, with their migratory after-effects. They will also increase, aggravated by global warming, of which the excessive use of hydrocarbons is the main cause and desertification the major effect in the region. The rent created irresponsibility. It led to chaos, reinforced by religious extremists, who saw in jihad, fueled by the oil windfall, the achievement of messianism conquering political Islamism on a planetary scale.
Will the Russian-Saudi agreement to limit production succeed in stemming the fall in crude prices?
The collapse in the price of a barrel was caused by Russia’s desire to drag American shale oil producers out of the market. They flooded the market and conquered world hegemony, leaving Riyadh and Moscow behind. Many western oil tankers are bankrupt, and senators from those states have exerted maximum pressure on Donald Trump to force Saudi Arabia to stop "downward escalation" with Russia, threatening to punish the Senate. Saudi military engagement in Yemen. Riad has just set up a "unilateral cease-fire".
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