Good article in the Houston Chronicle on the impact of the Iraq war on world oil supplies. Elimination of Saudi control on world oil supplies, major increase in production would drop oil prices dramatically. Short term, oil prices will spike at the start of the campaign but drop right back down once we start winning.

One interesting comment is that the Iraqi supply is so erratic right now that the market isn't even considering that in their pricing, so if Iraq damages their own fields it shouldn't have an impact on the market (though it would have an impact on our near-term ability to influence the world oil price).

There's an amusing bit of enviro-idiocy in todays Houston Chronicle:

The haze gathered in the Midwest, over the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, a few days ago before moving to Texas. Coal-fired power plants and other industrial emissions are the likely chief sources of the pollutants, Crimmins said.

Tom "Smitty" Smith, Texas director of the environmental watchdog group Public Citizen, said the haze is a choking reminder of the need for stronger federal pollution controls at power plants. An emissions reduction bill is pending in the U.S. Senate. The Bush administration has introduced an alternative plan.

"It's pretty ugly, isn't it?" Smith said of the haze. "With this coming from as far away as the Midwest, it's demonstrating that unless we reduce emissions by at least 75 percent across the board, we'll be plagued by ever-worsening air."

Errm, say what? Where the heck did "75 percent" come from? And just why, precisely, is a reduction necessary merely to keep air quality at its present level (I'm assuming he's referring to the pre-fog-cloud levels)? And why is it so incumbent on Houston to reduce emissions when this current fog has, after all, been foisted on us from somewhere else?

A quick glance out the window of my office reveals that (a) yes, it does look a bit foggy out, and (b) it's much less foggy out than a few years ago when the smoke from those Mexican wildfires drifted north to Texas.

A little perspective, people! Oh wait, according to the article this joker is from some sort of self-appointed environmental group, so that's obviously too much to ask.

James Bennet has a plan for rebuilding postwar Iraq. I'm not sure I agree with it in detail, but at least it's a start in a necessary debate.

The New Republic is exactly right about the Democrat party's inability to propose an alternative to the Bush strategy. Starting with a real criticism of the whole "homeland security" debacle's preference for "annoying insecurity measures" to "effective security measures" would be a good start. Oh, and the stupid "let's not upset the Saudi's by doing background checks on their visa applicants" line, that's another good one to criticise.

Maybe God does play dice with the universe. The New York lottery came up 9-1-1 yesterday.

Looks like Florida's voting problems are endemic, according to FOX News.

Bush? In the Guardian? Apparently so.

Hmm, looks like we're about to get started...

Island-Hopping, Desert Style

1. Take Afghanistan. This helps isolate Pakistan. We're still working on that one...
2. Take Iraq. If you're lucky the Iranian mullahs will send the politically (religiously?) reliable bits of their army in to help Saddam and/or capture some territory themselves. If you're not quite so lucky then then moving one or both of the armored corps from Germany to Iraq will help provoke them. At the very least, they'll have to concentrate their reliable troops across the border to face the threat, and they'll probably call for help from their terrorist clients like Al-Quaeda.

   And those two corps are much more useful in Basra than Weisbaden.

   The problem for the mullahs is that they can either use their reliable troops to hold off the U.S., or to hold down an insurrection, but not both. With any luck, there will be a revolution that will make it unnecessary to invade Iran, but with only a little luck we will be able to attack their concentrated army+terrorist irregulars and destroy it. The remnants will have the option of either fleeing north into the old Soviet republics like Chechnya (moderately attractive), back into Afghanistan (also moderately attractive), into the northern reaches of Iran or Iraq (modestly attractive), across Iraq into Syria or Saudi (attractive), or into muslim Africa (possibly also quite attractive).

   The problem with the first is that the Russians and their former states aren't too fond of muslim terrorists, and they'll be a long way from friendly territory. By the same token, Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, while containing some great hiding-places and some terrorist-friendly natives, aren't great operating bases -- they'd always be on the run and in hiding.

   Syria and "Saudi" Arabia are certainly sympathetic to terrorists, although the Saudis have historically preferred to fund them than host them (more on this later). Syria, however, will be in the awkward position of being surrounded by U.S.-friendly countries (Jordan), U.S.-allied countries (Turkey), and U.S.-controlled countries (Iraq), which puts it into an awkward position.

   I'm not sure about muslim Africa, though Egypt has been nominally allied with us for years I don't put anymore stock in that than the so-called Saudi alliance. Libya has been fairly quiet since the U.S. bombed them back in the mid-80's. And it's my understanding that several of the nations on the arabian side of the continent have become remarkably friendly of late.

3. Cut "Saudi" Arabia off by taking away its oil card.

   We don't actually have to capture its oil fields, although that would work too.

   One of the bennies of taking Iraq would be control of its oilfields. Auction the operating rights on the open market, and use that to help defray (or cover) the costs of the initial invasion. The lessee gets a percentage of the revenues as profit, the new Iraqi government gets a percentage for operating costs and general recovery, preferably audited and advised by non-UN westerners. And the U.S. gets a smaller slice to cover ongoing costs of maintaining one or two corps in-country (although if we simply transfer the corps currently in Germany into Iraq, it may well be a wash over time).

   Iraq, if my numbers are right, used to produce roughly 10% of the worlds oil supply. That's enough do all of the above, plus it wrests control over the price of oil away from "Saudi" Arabia (Saudi has larger reserves and greater production capacity, but they also have a tremendous interest in keeping the price high -- a lessee in Iraq has more of an interest in pumping as much as he can to recoup his initial investment).

   This has several ramifications:

   • Lower oil prices will help jumpstart our economy, if it hasn't recovered by then.
   • We would no longer be dependent on middle-eastern oil as the phrase is usually meant. We currently only import about 15% of our oil from the middle east, and Iraq's production can easily cover that. (Most of our imported oil comes from Canada and South America.)
   • Because of this, our economic health is not as vulnerable to external political instability.
   • Because Europe will also benefit from the lower oil prices, their economy should pick up as well, although their structural problems will keep their economic levels well below the U.S. One factor that would tend to counter this is their continuing reliance on other sources of middle-eastern oil makes them vulnerable to price fluctuations, especially if their arab suppliers attempt to use this european vulnerability to indirectly influence U.S. policy, which given the low state of the US-European relationship isn't likely to be successful.
   • "Saudi" Arabia will have less cash With which to fund and export terrorism, and less cash with which to buy off their own discontented people. Given the demographic shifts that have taken place there in recent decades, a revolution would not be surprising. Whether such a revolution would produce a less friendly government isn't particularly germaine -- an overt enemy is no less an enemy than a superficially friendly one, and a lot easier to deal with.

   Iran, after a (possibly US-assisted) revolution, is quite likely to be much more pro-US than the current regime (if Michael Ledeen and other sources are to be believed), which provides an additional oil lever against Saudi, especially since the new government will also need a quick influx of cash to consolidate its power and begin the rebuilding process, and therefore not likely to look favorably on production cuts.

4. If Saudi does suffer a revolution that results in an overtly anti-western (or anti-US) government, then the US forces in the area should be used to occupy their oil fields. Their forces currently are outmatched by a single U.S. division -- after an oil price collapse and a revolution they may not be able to leave their bases without a camel.

   The operator rights to their oilfields could, as in Iraq, be leased to a western oil company, further hampering the ability of the new non-Saudi government to support terrorism. Because of the geography of Arabia, it's not a particularly good place to hide a terrorist camp, which makes hosting a terrorist organization a tricky proposition.

   Without the influx of huge amounts of cash and western support, the modern veneer that the Saudis have purchased over the years will quickly collapse -- their entire country is run by foreign talent and labor, paid for by petrodollars. These people will bail in case of a revolution, and without the enticement of large sums of cash will not be coming back. Their cities will become inoperable within a few months, and be deserted within a few years.

   Between Iraq, Iran, and Saudi, you've cut off most of the support for the Palestinians, which should make Israel's job a lot easier.

5. Cut off foreign aid to Egypt. We're only giving it to them to keep them away from the Palestinians, and Israel should be able to handle things nicely now.
6. Get Turkey to invade Syria. Or vice versa (either way gets rid of Syria). This is easier to do if they're not being constantly nagged by the EU (but see a few points down). And besides, we've got these two heavy corps in Iraq that aren't particularly busy at this point that would be glad to help...
7. Do something about Libya, haven't decided what, and it kinda depends on Khaddafi.
8. Keep France and Germany from killing each other again.

   Unfortunately, once the US forces have been relocated from Germany to Iraq, it is possible that the tensions within the EU between France and Germany will lead to a moderate rearmament within a decade or so, probably on the French side first , and on the German side soon after. I hope I'm wrong about this, but there's still a great deal of distrust there, plus they're the two biggest kids (and former bullies) attempting to control what is still a pretty small sandbox. Once daddy is busy elsewhere I don't think they'll continue to play nice.

   I'm not sure how much of a worry it is, since I think the memory of the last time will keep a lid on things, but fortunately we've got a tremendous military advantage nowadays that we didn't have in 1941, and it's not something that either country could reproduce without a crippling amount of effort (and our capabilities aren't a standing target).

   Still, it's something to think about.

   One thing that would help tremendously here is keeping Britain out of the EU. A sort of cross-atlantic extension to NAFTA (North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement?) sounds about right, and they wouldn't have to accept the Euro, the EU bureacracy, or the French.

   For that matter, enticing Turkey out of its EU obsession with a similar NAFTA-like arrangement also seems like a good idea -- if we're gonna be mucking around in the middle east it would be nice to make sure our traditional ally in that region stays as closely allied with us as possible.

Ok, I'm out of steam. This probably needs a lot more editing...

Suman Palit thinks the ROW is insane for pissing off the US. He may be right; only time will tell.

Impassioned essay by James Cramer, "The Making of a Hawk".

Of course, there are still those whose dogged stupidity still shines as a beacon for the intellectually challenged.

I'm not normally one to speak approvingly of Alan Dershowitz, but this article in the Guardian is a humdinger (he blames 9/11 on the weak, appeasement-minded Europeans). I think I might have to go and buy his new book.