Will War With Syria Cause The Price Of Oil To Explode Higher?
By Michael Snyder
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
August 28th, 2013
Are you ready to pay four, five or possibly even six dollars for a gallon of gasoline? War has consequences, and a conflict with Syria has the potential to escalate wildly out of control very rapidly. The Obama administration is pledging that the upcoming attack on Syria will be “brief and limited” and that the steady flow of oil out of the Middle East will not be interrupted. But what happens if Syria strikes back? What happens if Syrian missiles start raining down on Tel Aviv? What happens if Hezbollah or Iran starts attacking U.S. or Israeli targets? Unless Syria, Hezbollah and Iran all stand down and refuse to fight back, we could very easily be looking at a major regional war in the Middle East, and that could cause the price of oil to explode higher. Syria is not a major oil producer, but approximately a third of all of the crude oil in the world is produced in the Middle East. If the Suez Canal or the Persian Gulf (or both) get shut down for an extended period of time, the consequences would be dramatic. The price of oil has already risen about 15% so far this summer, and war in the Middle East could potentially send it soaring into record territory.
We can always hope that cooler heads prevail and that a conflict is avoided, but at this point it does not look like that is going to happen. In fact, according to Richard Engel of NBC News, a senior U.S. official has admitted that “we’re past the point of return” and that a strike on Syria can be expected within days.
Obama is promising that the U.S. will “take limited, tailored approaches”, and that we will not be “getting drawn into a long conflict, not a repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried about”, but how in the world can he guarantee that?
Syria, Iran and Hezbollah have all threatened to attack Israel if the U.S. attacks Syria.
If missiles start raining down on Israeli cities, the Israelis are not just going to sit there and take it like they did during the first Gulf War. In fact, according to the Los Angeles Times, “Israeli leaders are making it clear that they have no intention of standing down this time if attacked”.
If Israel is attacked, their military response will be absolutely massive.
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