FAISAL AND OIL Driving Toward a New World Order

In every car and tractor, in every tank and plane—oil. Behind almost every lighted glass tower, giant industrial plant or little workshop, computer and moon rocket and television signal—oil. Behind fertilizers, drugs, chemicals, synthetic textiles and thousands of other products—the same substance that until recently was taken for granted as a seemingly inexhaustible and obedient treasure. Few noted the considerable historic irony that the world's most advanced civilizations depended for this treasure on countries generally considered weak, compliant and disunited. Now all that has changed, and the result has been a major economic and political dislocation throughout the world.

The...