Mahmoud has served his country excellently. With just his mouth, he kept the price of oil high for quite some time, but its not working so well lately. In a recent interview Ike opinied that he wants to precipitate an attack to get prices back up.
Nothing gets arab public opinion united than seeing a bunch of dead palestinian kids killed by US made weapons given to Israel.
Then the social and political pressures build up to do another oil embargo, etc.. or at least cutting oil gets more footing.