One liar and five fools:Think Progress
documents White House aide Dan Bartlett lying when he said "no one [in the administration] ever said that this war was going to result in cheaper gas prices". Laurence Lindsey did. And over at Blah3, there is a
juicy collection of essays from big name conservatives (Heritage, WSJ, National Review, et al) who said the Iraq War was likely to lead to cheaper oil. Most claims were for under $25 a barrel. And all were wrong, as today's $72 price demonstrates.
CLARIFICATION: The current high price of oil is due to tensions and concerns surrounding Iran, and should not have been cited. A more relevant oil price is the over-$50 we've seen for a long time since the Iraq War started, and which lasted up until the Iran factor started to have its effect.
posted by Quiddity at 4/21/2006 01:48:00 AM
yes, but...
The sabre rattling over Iran wouldn't have had the same impact without the Iraq war already resulting in higher prices.
Whether the United States imports oil from Iran is irrelevant; as a large importer of oil it must pay a competitive price. It's a question of supply and demand; if a huge source of supply suddenly decreases or stops entirely - as is possible if Iran is attacked - the demand imbalance will cause a very large price spike.
It's probably all a moot point because the price of oil is probably never going to come down - we are probably already at the point where supply simply cannot grow fast enough. Countries that are based on inefficient transportation infrastructure (suburbs and highways) are going to be feeling a lot of pain...
I probably should have edited one or two of those "probably"s out. Probably. Sorry about that.
