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July 09, 1985 - Image 5

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Publication:
Michigan Daily, 1985-07-09

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OPINION

Page 5
Vol. XCV, No. 26-S
95 Years of Editorial Freedom
Managed and Edited by Students at
The University of Michigan
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the
Daily Editorial Board
OPEC will rebound
THE FACT that the Organization of Petroleum Ex-
p porting Countries has failed to reach an agreement on
quotas may show that the cartel is losing its power - but
don't be fooled.
The OPEC nations this week have failed to set new
policies for oil pricing and production. They have agreed,
however, to meet again on July 22 in Geneva, Switzerland,
to work out their differences.
OPEC's troubles stem from oil producing countries un-
dercutting prices and surpassing production quotas. Many
of the oil producing nations, including Mexico and Nigeria,
have huge debts to pay back.
Non-OPEC and some OPEC countries have found that
they can make more money if they produce more than the
OPEC production quota and sell it at a lower price.
Internal pressures from various governments to in-
crease oil revenues to pay back loans has served as an in-
centive to ignore OPEC quotas.
But the oil reserves of the non-OPEC countries like,
Great Britain and Norway, will eventually run out and the
debts of the smaller countries will be paid back.
The major portion of the world's oil supply is still located
r within the boundaries of OPEC nations.
The only way OPEC will be broken up is if the industrial
nations develop another source to replace oil. It doesn't
appear that a new source will be developed soon.
Internal bickering will cause problems for OPEC, but it
will not cause its break-up.
OPEC's current problems will probably mean lower
prices at the gas pump, but watch out. OPEC will come
back to haunt us.
T
I 1

Tuesday, July 9, 1985

The Michigan Daily

Lessons from TWA flight 847
act, with no preventative effects for tective in achieving the dictates of
By William Beeman the future. either Washington or Moscow. The
There was little separation between best the U.S. has been able to produce
Like the Iranian hostage crisis the domestic politics of the nations in recent years has been one
before it, the saga of TWA flight 847 involved and their foreign politics. miniscule success in Grenada. The
has violated virtually every under- The most important factors in this Soviet Union has none.
standing U.S. government officials crisis centered on internal American Willingness to negotiate inter-
have about dealings in foreign affairs. politics, internal Israeli politics and national issues on a case-by-case
When events such as this challenge internal Lebanese politics. basis will likely replace blanket use of
conventional wisdom, it is wise to see Diplomacy was not exclusively in raw power asa strategy.
whether conventional wisdom itself the hands of diplomats or world Domestic politics throughout the
may not be askew. leaders. Lebanese citizens, American world are likely to become everyone's
On careful examination, one gains citizens, and even the hostages them- concern. Human rights have become
through this crisis a surprising view of selves played an active role in an international issue, and where
a possible future world in which bringing an end to the crisis. they are violated, people are begin-
superpower politics - the set of un- The cast of friends and enemies in ning to understand that the whole
derstandings that have governed in- the international roster of super- world suffers for that violation.
ternational relations since the end of power allies was reversed. Israel, As the world shrinks, international
world war II -no longer applies, who is supposed to be a friend of the relations become the domain of every
Those understandings were based United States, was not particularly citizen: businesspeople, tourists,
on three key assumptions: that vir- cooperative in promoting U.S. in- students, and religious figures are
tually all international affairs have to terests. Syria, high on Washington's just as likely to have a role in shaping
be seen through the lens of U.S. and list of enemies, turned out to beoone of incidents that have import for foreign
Soviet superpower relations; that in a the chief promoters of U.S. interests. affairs as professional diplomats.
world made up of nation-states, only This tells Americans a great deal The world is moving away from
governments and the agents can deal about the shape of things to come and centuries of international
on the international scene; and that should make professionals in the isolationism to a world of extensive
domestic politics remain her- foreign policy community deeply . people-to-people contact. The TWA
metically sealed off from foreign af- skeptical of current assumptions 847 hostages all claim that their lives
fairs, governing foreign affairs. have been changed through this in-
The TWA hostage crisis has turned We are likely to see many places cident.bTheyhave becometinter-
these assumptions around. Among around the globe like Lebanon where national actors, and will likely
the more startling changes: communities of disgruntled in- remain so for some time to come.
It has been demonstrated once dividuals feel their desires and in- Finally, Americans should accept
again that Lebanon is not a nation- terests are not being properly the fact that the bi-polar world is
state in the conventional sense. The represented by those purporting to be giving way to a more complicated but
interests of its citizenry are not their leaders. If these communities more realistic multi-polar world, one
represented by its government. have no outlet through which they can in which there is no clear-cut list of
President Gemayel of Lebanon was work toward improving their con- friends and enemies. The peoples of
barely heard from during the entire ditions, they are likely to adopt a the world want the best for them-
crisis, despite the fact that it was strategy of terrorism. Pious in- selves and those they care for. They
taking place in his capital. vocation of the nation-state model will will work to meet their needs with
The United States was unable to not protect the United States or other whomever will extend a hand of
dictate in advance what the terms of nations from being victims of that cooperation and friendship to them,
international negotiations would be terrorism. independent of specific ideology.
and make those conditions stick. (The The United States and the Soviet
Soviet Union played no visible role at Union are truly incapable of flexing Beeman served as an advisor to
all.) Moreover, despite macho their political and military muscles the State Department during the
posturing, it seems clear that any effectively. Indeed, in the last 20 Iranian hostage crisis. He wrote
"retaliation" on the part of the United years there have been very few clear- thisfor Pacific News Service.
States will be a largely meaningless cut power plays which have been ef-
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