Originally published at IntellectualCapital.com
By K. Daniel Glover

Reform Party presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan speaks contemptuously of “a global conspiracy … to loot the American nation.” House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) chides the Clinton administration for an energy policy that “puts America in the humiliating position of having to go groveling” for help. Liberal pundit Michael Kinsley condemns “a price-fixing conspiracy of textbook purity” and urges the government to regard the alleged profiteers as “criminal.”

That is just a sampling of the vitriol so prevalent in today’s world of ever-increasing gasoline prices, and much of that hostility is directed at one entity: the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The 11-member cartel of oil-producing nations, on the verge of collapse when oil was selling for $10 a barrel not so long ago, suddenly finds itself as Public Enemy No. 1. The animosity is apparent along all points of the political spectrum and among consumers as well as policymakers. So loud has been the outcry that the House felt compelled to cast a purely symbolic vote March 22 to “send a message” to OPEC. The 382-38 vote was on a bill, ridiculed as “feel-good fluff” by some Democrats, requiring the White House to review OPEC pricing practices.

OPEC decided this week to boost oil production by 1.7 million barrels a day, nearly half the 4 million barrels a day in output its members had trimmed in the past year. If, as expected, that decision stabilizes the oil market and drive prices down, the anti-OPEC ire in America may ease.

But a seemingly ascendant OPEC, which could change its mind and cut oil production at later meetings, continues to pose diplomatic, political and potentially economic challenges for the United States. The question is whether U.S. policymakers can do anything to prevent OPEC from flexing its oligopolistic muscles — or whether they should even try.

The risks of oil diplomacy
On both questions, oil-industry observers and economists tend to agree: The United States has little, if any, ability to influence the decisions OPEC — whose membership consists of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Nigeria and Indonesia — makes about how much oil to put on the market.
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