ajority of OPEC members such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have large stake in Bab el-Mandeb and these other locations, which leads to massive tension when their stake is threatened as it was in 2015. 2015 marked the beginning of the ongoing war in Yemen that continues to impact oil prices today; the end is not in sight. The conflict is a result of a failed Arab Spring movement within Yemen in which the political transition from Ali Abdullah Saleh, an authoritarian president, to Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi; due to Hadi’s inability to fend off separatists, al-Qaeda, unemployment, poverty, starvation, corruption, Iran’s intervention on behalf of the Houthis, and a military that still held loyalties to Saleh, he failed to bring stability to the country and people of Yemen (Yemen Crisis). The Houthis, a group of armed religious individuals who affiliate with the Zaidi Shia Muslim sect, took this transition period as the prime moment to strike. They had fought against President Saleh many times yet had failed (Yemen Crisis). This time around, they preyed on Hadi’s transitional weakness and gained control of Saada province and other areas of which surrounded the region. Then, the Houthis made a grab for control of the entirety of Yemen, which forced Hadi to seek refuge elsewhere in March of 2015. It is known that Iran has been backing the Houthi’s military and that the United States has recently poured $110 billion USD worth of arms into the Saudi Arabian military (Trump and Saudi Arabia). This Iranian backed instability incited Saudi Arabia and other countries such as UAE, Senegal, Sudan, Morocco, and Qatar, to bomb-strike with the hopes of Hadi regaining power and stability being renewed to Bab el-Mandeb. There have been many strikes since on both sides. At one point, Saudi Arabia tightened its blockade of Yemen even further due to a ballistic missile being fired with the intent of hitting Riyadh (Yemen Crisis). This blockade has ruined Yemen’s economy. Saudi Arabia has taken over the Yemen Central Bank, engineered a currency crisis, collapsed purchasing power, left ¾ of the Yemeni population with little to no food or healthcare, and in the process of bombing have contributed to over 56,000 civilian deaths since 2016 (Mohamed). Yemen is not the only political climate inciting volatility in Saudi Arabia’s oil market. After the brutal kidnapping and dismemberment of highly connected Washington Post writer, Jamal Khashoggi, within the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, it has become obvious that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States are playing a game of political poker and using oil as the cash-out. President Erdogan of Turkey has been in power for 15 years. In this time period he has managed to gain control of nearly all Turkish news and media; Erdogan is not above promoting his own personal agenda through these means. Just as news broke of Khashoggi’s murder, Turkish officials and the news outlets controlled by them alerted the world that they had possession of audio recordings of Khashoggi’s death. Turkey then attempted to use their possession of these recordings as a direct threat to Saudi Arabia; this kind of pressure was put in place on Saudi Arabia and the United States in order to have the outcome turn to be in Turkey and/or President Erdogan’s favor (Gall). Unfortunately for Mr. Erdogan, President Donald Trump is not always a predictable player, and oil can often find itself replacing the space reserved for political transparency. Trump decisively backed Mohammed bin Salman and told the world that “rogue killers” were responsible for the murder of Khashoggi despite the CIA later stating that M.B.S was wholly complicit in the most intricate details of the affair (Gall; Harris). This did not please Erdogan; in response, he released in depth descriptions of the tapes in a mounting act of pressure on the two countries. Amanda Sloat of the Brookings Institution says, “Initially, it seemed Turkey was seeking a bargain with or financial support from Saudi Arabia, but it increasingly appears that Turkey is seeking to inflict maximum damage on M.B.S.” (Gall). While this may be the case, the United States will not be turning their back on the Saudis any time soon. Saudi Arabia stands far higher than any of the other struggling OPEC members as it is the world’s largest oil producer, net exporter, and the only OPEC nation with a set plan to rebound its economy from Dutch Disease: Vision 2030. With the recent sanctions being re-imposed on Iran due to the collapse of the Iran Nuclear Deal, Donald Trump wants to maintain key Saudi financial, oil, and arms backers with respect to national interest. Let’s face it, arming Saudi Arabia in the Yemeni Civil War as well as steering clear of implementing repercussions over the death of Khashoggi, while tragic, was the price America had to pay in order to maintain the steady arms related cash flow and keep oil prices low. This graph, created on November 23rd, 2018, demonstrates how the precipitous drop in oil also has a correlation to the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate on October 2nd, 2018 (Blokland). Previously, oil was at a 2018 all-time high trading at a peak of $76 a barrel in early October. On exactly October 2nd, oil prices began to plummet, resulting in US crude oil trading at $51 a barrel. Since changes in production affect the price of oil on a medium and long term basis (as there is not enough time to get the oil into the system), what we see is trader volatility. Production changes can’t affect the price of oil that quickly, so when there ar>