... oil production was on the back of the drop in oil prices in the mid-80's as the Saudis turned on the tap.

And, of course, "enough to make oligarchs fabulously wealthy", and "enough to maintain an expensive military machine and expensive buffer-state empire" can quite easily be quite different amounts of "enough".

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.