Oil price spike: who suffers?: "

[T]he US appears to have fought a war for oil in the Middle East, and lost it. The consequences of that defeat are now plain for all to see.

Yes, indeed. I was totally gobsmacked when I filled up my mid-sized car yesterday and had to fork over more than $29 for the privilege. The prices seem to be climbing almost by the hour here in central Virginia.

That quote above, btw, above comes from a really excellent letter submitted to the Financial Times by Dr. Ian Rutledge, who describes himself as the author of a recently published book called Addicted to oil. (Memo to self: look for it. And hat-tip to Matt of Today in Iraq for the lead to Rutledge's letter.)

In the letter, Rutledge argued that one of the Bush administration's main motives in launching the invasion of Iraq had been to secure control of the Iraqi oil-fields and thus be able to start pumping an extra 2 million barrels of oil a day out of them to feed the world market (as well as, no doubt, the coffers of the US oil companies who'd be doing the pumping.)

But then,

in the words of another US oil company executive, 'it all turned out a lot more complicated than anyone had expected'. Instead of the anticipated post-invasion rapid expansion of Iraqi production... the continuing violence of the insurgency has prevented Iraqi exports from even recovering to pre-invasion levels.

So now, the price-hike."

(Via 'Just World News' by Helena Cobban.)