(FORTUNE Magazine) – When the army of Iraq crushed tiny Kuwait, did it also squash OPEC, the price- fixing cartel that both countries helped create back in 1960? OPEC agreed to waive the production quotas set in July after the United Nations imposed an embargo on oil from Iraq and Kuwait, and most of the other 11 members began to produce oil as fast as they could (see chart). First clues on what happens next will come at the OPEC meeting set to start in Vienna on December 12. The big question: Will OPEC Secretary General Subroto of Indonesia be able to bring together the aggressors from Baghdad and the Kuwaitis they drove so brutally into exile? Expect the powwow to provide some interesting histrionics, such as no-shows, walkouts, and the like. But beyond that, nothing that happens in Vienna is likely to alter the probability that OPEC will survive. Here's why. When the crisis is over, there will be tremendous overcapacity as Kuwait and Iraq reenter world oil markets. If the cartel doesn't reimpose quotas, prices could crash to $10 a barrel or below. No one in OPEC, regardless of any venomous hatreds, is likely to let that happen. Kuwait and Iraq (with or without Saddam Hussein) will need to export oil in order to get their economies moving again. And countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have expanded production to make up for embargoed oil, will gladly accept new quotas to avoid a glut or a replay of Iraq's invasion. The OPEC meeting, says John Lichtblau, chairman of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, ''is intended to demonstrate that OPEC will still be around to take over at the end of the Kuwait crisis.'' How can such bitter enemies ever come to terms? Remember that the Iraqis and Iranians attended OPEC meetings through the eight long years of their murderous war. Says Daniel Yergin, president of Cambridge Energy Research Associates: ''Everyone will sit down together in his own self-interest. It's a constant minuet.''

; CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: SOURCE: CAMBRIDGE ENERGY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES CAPTION: WHAT HAPPENED TO OIL PRODUCTION QUOTAS