Prices are directly linked to Middle Eastern conflicts.
Jaffe & Elass 16 [Amy; a research professor and managing director at the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; Jareer; a Washington-based energy analyst; 01/01/2016; “War and the Oil Price Cycle”; https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/war-oil-price-cycle]
Oil has shaped international conflict for decades. According to one estimate, twenty-five to fifty percent of interstate wars between 1973 and 2012 had oil-related linkages. 1 But the cyclical nature of oil’s contribution to global conflict is not well understood. Not only are oil prices cyclical, but the geopolitics of oil are linked inexorably to the same boom and bust price cycle.
Military adventurism, proxy wars and regional pathologies in the Middle East expand and contract with the ebb and flow of massive petrodollar accumulations related to the oil price cycle.