ABSTRACT
The last gasp of the Teheran agreement before it expired occurred in Vienna at the beginning of October 1973. From the very moment that Arab League leaders realized the potentiality of Arab oil resources for realizing the political objectives of the League, they attempted to involve oil in the political struggle. The official revocation of the embargo became the subject of a major battle between the big oil producers and the radicals in the Arab League, especially Egypt. An Arab summit conference was convened in Algiers to deal with the embargo. The Arab oil-producing countries may be further divided into two additional categories: conservative and radical nations, each group of which had opposing aims in promulgating the embargo. Spokesmen for the most important Arab oil-producing countries, ignoring the global strife between the superpowers and all the international economic and financial components of the crisis, proclaimed that the energy crisis was a purely political issue.
