Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other OPEC nations can be expected to consider global security implications of Biden administration pressures on them to increase oil and gas production to compensate for shortfalls influenced by their own anti-fossil energy policies.

These preexisting conditions are only made worse by an appropriate belated American ban on Russian imports which should never have been necessary for our recently energy-independent country in the first place.

A Wall Street Journal poll has indicated that 79% of Americans favor a ban on Russian hydrocarbon imports in retaliation for their Ukraine invasion even if it further increased U.S. energy prices.

This public expression of high moral principles comes at a time when our country was already experiencing painfully escalating inflation.

An OPEC “quick fix” oil injection timed to help get Democrats through an upcoming 2022 congressional election will only work to extend control by the same failed people and programs that are destroying global energy stability and defense security until it is too late for reversal.

Peaceful members of Arab communities will likely take no comfort as the Biden administration which now also pleads for increased oil production from Iran and Communist Venezuela, is simultaneously pursuing reenactment of the Obama administration’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the so-called “Iran nuclear deal.”

After desperate White House officials met with the Venezuela regime to discuss buying oil from them in exchange for dropping sanctions, then asked also whether the U.S. might even purchase Iranian oil, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded that “all options are on the table.”

A resurrected JCPOA that the Trump administration ended in 2018 would provide rogue Iran with billions of dollars in exchange for at best only temporarily slowing nuclear development … more money that Tehran can spend fomenting Middle East terror.

Ominously, this comes at a time when Tehran has essentially declared war on America by launching ballistic missiles near our Iraq consulate in Erbil over the weekend.

Russia, a JCPOA signatory and — paradoxically — also America’s designated negotiator, has now walked away from talks following failures to open a loophole in Western sanctions levied against them in response to their Ukraine assault.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov had demanded a written guarantee that sanctions “launched by the U.S. will not in any way harm our right to free, fully fledged trade and economic and investment cooperation and military-technical cooperation with Iran.”

In any case, it’s likely already too late for JCPOA to offer any free world security benefits in return for oil sanctions relief to help reduce self-inflicted skyrocketing U.S. petroleum prices and inflation.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reportedly believes that Iran has already produced about three-quarters of the amount of 90% enriched weapon-grade uranium needed for a nuclear weapon, and is weeks away from completion.

Apart from JCPOA, it’s also worth noting that Russia has provided Iran with weapons, including an S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile system, Kilo-class submarines, T-72 tanks, BMP-2 infantry armored vehicles, Mi-17 helicopters, and various anti-tank systems.

From 1995 to 2005, more than 70 percent of Iran’s arms imports came from Russia, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Whereas following Biden administration pressure, the United Arab Emirates has encouraged fellow OPEC+ alliance members (including Russia) to increase oil production, Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader, has so far resisted.

As noted in the Financial Times, only Saudi Arabia has the ability to significantly increase output, UAE to a lesser degree, and even a coordinated move “[wouldn’t] provide enough spare capacity to fill a Russia-sized hole.”

Meanwhile, some OPEC members, including Nigeria, Angola and Malaysia, have consistently failed to meet most recent production quotas agreed to last year.

Recognizing that Gulf states have been cautious to tread a neutral line between Moscow and Washington, Abu Dhabi officials are reportedly frustrated regarding what they perceive to be timid Biden administration sanction responses to attacks on the UAE by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, and failures to designate Houthis as a terrorist group.

Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami, president of the International Institute for Iranian Studies, asks: “What if Western countries took steps — not as comprehensive as those taken against Russia, but let’s say equivalent to 10% of those measures — would Iran have continued its hostile behavior?”

Al-Sulami adds, “Would it have succeeded in controlling four Arab capitals? Would the Iranian expansionist project in the region have withstood such steps? Would these non-military measures have prompted Tehran to change its behavior and become a normal country?”

U.S. JCPOA sanction relief, after all, is now being considered for the same Tehran that threatens death to Israel and to America in exchange for some temporary help in getting politically inflation-besieged American Democrats through upcoming congressional 2022 election challenges.

In their final analyses, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ members must ultimately determine which America serves their best long-term interests.

One of those Americas would return to strong uncompromised energy-independent leadership which supported the Abraham Accords and recognized the importance of “maintaining and strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence, as well as respect for human dignity and freedom, including religious freedom.”

The other America — a weak vestige of its former self — views climate change as its “greatest existential threat,” while making desperate deals with truly dangerous and destabilizing adversaries.

Such delusional priorities were recently expressed by former Obama administration Secretary of State and chief JCPOA architect John Kerry who said he hoped that “President Putin will help us to stay on track with what we need to do for the climate.”

This is not the sort of American leadership that any peaceful Middle East or other nations should wish amid growing threats of a nuclear Iran and its ruthlessly expansionist Russian arms trade partner.

Nor is it the sort of leadership we should wish for ourselves.

This piece originally appeared at NewsMax.com and has been republished here with permission.