include Qatar, indonesia, libya, the United Arab
Emirates, Nigeria, and algeria. Today the OPEC
countries account for 40 percent of world oil
production. Initially the stated goal of OPEC was
to nationalize and gain control of its members’ oil
resources, which at the time were held primarily
by American, British, and Dutch transnational
corporations, including British Petroleum, Exxon,
Texaco, and others.
By 1973 many of the OPEC countries had
made progress in seizing control of their oil
resources. However, it was not until the out-
break of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war that OPEC’s
international power became visibly apparent,
when, led by its Arab members, OPEC doubled
the price from $2.55 to $5.09 per barrel, and
the Arab countries imposed an embargo on the
United States because of its close ties with israel.
Between 1973 and 1978 OPEC raised the price
three times. However, OPEC’s unity began to
fray in 1980 when war broke out between Iraq
and Iran, two of its most important members.
Falling demand meant lower prices from 1983
onward, and the flooding of the market in 1986
by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, aimed at weakening
Iran, brought the price down. Leading up to the
1990–91 Gulf War, saddam hUsayn (r. 1979–
2003) urged OPEC to push world oil prices up,
but the disunity among OPEC countries failed
to bring that into effect. As oil prices continued
to drop, OPEC coordinated a scaling back of oil
production beginning in 1998.
In mid-2004 OPEC announced that its mem-
bers had little excess pumping capacity, indicat-
ing that it was losing influence over oil prices.
Faced with record oil prices in 2006 OPEC
members declared their inability to increase out-
put in order to drive prices down, leading some
to speculate that the organization’s power may
be waning. However, although OPEC countries
have accounted for an average of 40 percent of
world oil production since 1970, the amount of
proven world oil reserves under their control is
much higher, at around 69 percent. This implies
increased OPEC production as a proportion of
total world production over the long term.
See also arab-israeli conFlicts; gUlF Wars.
Joshua HoffmanFurther reading: Jahangir Amuzegar, Managing the Oil
Wealth: OPEC’s Windfalls and Pitfalls (London and New
York: I.B. Tauris, 2001); Nathan J. Citino, From Arab
Nationalism to OPEC: Eisenhower, Kind Saud, and the
Making of U.S.-Saudi Relations (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2002); Dag Harald Claes, The Politics
of Oil-Producer Cooperation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview
Press, 2001).Organization of the Islamic Conference
(OIC)
The OIC is an international body composed of
57 member states, most of which have Muslim
majorities. There are also 13 states and organiza-
tions that have observer status, including the arab
leagUe, the United Nations, the Russian Fed-
eration, Thailand, and the moro national libera-
tion Front of the Philippines. In June 2007 the
United States announced that it would be sending
a special envoy to OIC meetings. india, with the
world’s second largest Muslim population, has
expressed a desire to obtain observer status, but
this has been blocked by Pakistan, its chief rival
in South Asia.
The OIC was established in Rabat, morocco,
in September 1969. Its aims are to promote coop-
eration among Muslim countries and to serve as a
collective voice for Muslim interests on the world
scene. In the aftermath of World War II several
new transregional power blocs of nation-states
were created. These included the bloc of Western
capitalist countries led by the United States and
western European countries, the bloc of commu-
nist countries led by the Soviet Union and China,
the nonaligned countries (such as India, indone-
sia, and egypt), as well as international organiza-K 534 Organization of the Islamic Conference