Enormous dislocations to the West? Oil lines for a year and a recession? Americans can't afford to fill two cars for a while? On the bright side it might make us build nuke plants and drill for more domestic oil and clean coal technology.
But only if Sadaam were an idiot would he do that. The ME has one cash earning export- oil. Even a Sadaam couldn't sit on it forever. Further- from the last experience OPEC had when they tried to fix prices and attempted an embargo- it was a disaster for them. The ME produces no manufactured goods to speak of. All of their technology- including the technology to drill for their only export comes from the West. Sadaam sitting on 25 million barrels of oil is not in the cards.
But only if Sadaam were an idiot would he do that. ... Sadaam sitting on 25 million barrels of oil is not in the cards.He has already been proven to be an "idiot". He only needs to keep about 20,000 people real happy and maybe another 100,000 kinda happy, and thats it; not the whole country. Children are starving every day over there and he could care less. His goal is power, and not necessarily money for the peasants. Dont forget , a hungry peasant is a preoccupied one, no time for rebellion. He's a true Visogoth; no one can even pretend to know what he'd do, and you'd have to be blind to not see what he's capable of.