Welcome to the latest episode of 'Rich People Fighting Over a Dying Planet,' featuring our favorite hydrocarbon-huffing syndicate: OPEC. For decades, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has functioned like a geriatric bridge club for petro-dictators, where the primary rules are to keep production low, prices high, and the rest of the world sufficiently desperate. But lately, the United Arab Emirates has decided that playing by the rules is for people who don't have enough gold-plated skyscrapers. The Emiratis are flouting production quotas on a scale that can only be described as 'statistically insulting' to their Saudi neighbors, and frankly, I find the entire spectacle delicious in its naked depravity.

Let’s be clear: the UAE isn't 'rebelling' out of some noble commitment to free-market principles or a desire to lower your gas prices. They are simply tired of subsidizing the stagnant ambitions of an ossified Saudi monarchy that still thinks it’s 1974. Under the leadership of Sultan Al Jaber—the man who had the sheer, unadulterated gall to preside over a global climate summit while simultaneously planning to pump enough crude to drown a continent—the UAE has realized that the 'cartel' is just a weight around their neck. They’ve invested billions into ADNOC, their state oil giant, and they have no intention of letting that machinery sit idle just so Riyadh can feel like the big man on campus. It’s a classic case of the overachieving sociopath finally realizing that the group project is holding back his GPA.

The irony, of course, is thicker than the sludge they’re pulling out of the Zakum field. On the Left, we have the performative outrage of the environmentalists who truly believe that a strongly worded tweet or a soup-covered Van Gogh will stop the UAE from maximizing its sovereign wealth. These people live in a fantasy world where the 'energy transition' is something that happens because we all collectively decided to be 'nicer' to the atmosphere. Meanwhile, on the Right, the usual suspects are cheering for the 'collapse of the cartel' as if it’s a victory for Western capitalism. It isn’t. If OPEC breaks, it’s not because liberty has triumphed; it’s because one flavor of greed has simply out-competed another. You’re not getting cheaper gas because the Emiratis love you; you’re getting it because they want to liquidate their assets before the world realizes that burning liquid dinosaurs is a technological dead end.

The friction between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh is a masterclass in narcissistic geopolitics. You have Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) locked in a struggle that looks less like international diplomacy and more like two Bond villains arguing over who gets to press the 'destruct' button. The Saudis want to maintain the illusion of control, keeping prices artificially inflated to fund their 'Vision 2030' fever dreams—cities made of mirrors and robot maids that will never exist. The Emiratis, being slightly more grounded in the reality of their own rapaciousness, want to cash out now. They know the clock is ticking on the oil era, and they’d rather be the ones holding the cash when the music stops.

What we are witnessing is the inevitable decay of a collective lie. OPEC was always a fragile alliance held together by the mutual fear of poverty. Now that the UAE feels wealthy enough to ignore the house rules, the mask is slipping. They are over-producing, under-reporting, and essentially telling the rest of the cartel to go find a sand dune to cry on. It’s the ultimate expression of the modern age: absolute individualism disguised as a bureaucratic dispute. Why bother with the 'common good' of a cartel when you can simply be the biggest predator in the pool?

And let’s not forget the pathetic role of the West in this melodrama. Washington and Brussels watch these developments with the wide-eyed terror of a toddler watching their parents get a divorce, terrified of whose house they’ll have to stay at and whether there will be enough snacks. We are utterly beholden to the whims of these desert kingdoms, yet we pretend we are the masters of our own destiny. We talk about 'energy security' while our entire civilization remains a hostage to the internal bickering of two royal families who view the Geneva Convention as a list of 'suggestions' and the global economy as their personal piggy bank.

In the end, if the UAE breaks OPEC, don't expect a parade. Expect a more chaotic, more volatile, and more honest version of the same old grift. The cartel might die, but the underlying rot—the desperate, clawing need to squeeze every last drop of profit out of a scorched earth—remains perfectly intact. The Emiratis aren't breaking the system; they’re just refining it for a more cynical century. And I, for one, am bored of pretending it could have ended any other way.