Oil prices have picked up right where they left off yesterday, fueled by new concerns over tensions in the Middle East. Prices have moved up $1.42 on the day to $88.52 and hit an intraday high of $88.99 earlier in the session.

Yesterday, traders pushed prices higher after the U.S. Energy Department's weekly inventory report showed an unexpected decline of 5.3 million barrels, but today's extra price gains are being attributed to new violence between Israel and Lebanon. Any Middle Eastern conflicts will result in price gains, and that is exactly what we are seeing today on news that Lebanese troops fired on Israeli warplanes.

While it is true that a conflict between Israel and Lebanon would not impact supplies from the region, there is always the fear that an escalation of violence between the two would draw in the big oil players in the region. This is the first encounter since last summer's conflict between Israel and Hezbollah rebels, which pushed oil prices to last summer's highs.This is not the only conflict in the region that has the potential to create larger problems. Unrest between Turkey and the Kurds of Northern Iraq continue to weigh on traders' minds. Turkey now has about 100,000 troops stationed on the border of the two countries in preparation to invade and crush the 3,000 Kurdish rebels in the area.

Turkey's President Abdullah Gul warned the Kurds again today that he was running out of patience following reports that the Turkish army had to fight off another guerrilla attack near the Iraqi border. Tensions have been growing since last weekend when Kurd rebels invaded Turkey and reportedly killed twelve Turkish military personnel.

In other Middle Eastern news, it was announced today that America had imposed new sanctions on Iran in reaction to the country's nuclear program ambitions. This is nothing new, and the debate between Iran and the West has been going on for some time, but today's new sanctions are the most severe against the country since 1979. Iran continues to maintain that its nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful, but the West is not buying it, assuming that the Middle Eastern country is pursuing nuclear weapons.

Today's sanctions target 22 Iranian Government agencies and three state-owned banks. All of these entities have now been placed on America's black list. The Iranian government labeled these sanctions as a "strategic mistake."

With so many different factors pushing prices higher, don't be surprised if we see $90 oil again very soon.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.