is, of course, who is going to get to be the Caliph. That's when the fun will start, unless the entire Islamic world would unite behind OBL, which is rather unlikely considering the spoils, chief among which is oil. There will be contenders.

I am very surprised that a 20-year war plan doesn't hardly mention the Caliphate's virtual monopoly on world oil by 2020.  I have to conclude, these guys are not really aware of what really matters in the modern world.

Oh yes, money.  With oil selling for several $100 a barrel in 2020, the Caliphate will be a center of world wealth.  No mention here of the mischief that money could wreak.

I think that Lenin had a quicker and clearer plan when he left from Switzerland to Russia. Al-Qaeda got at least their time frame right.

What comes to oil, some people want to forget that it is Arab oil. According to the contemporary international law, they do not need to sell a drop of it if they do not want to.

Propaganda language in action:

It is both frightening and absurd, a lunatic plan conceived by fanatics who live in their own world, but who continually manage to break into the real world with their brutal acts of ...

Think a business plan described in those terms or a declaration of political leaders.

... a man with a plan is hard to beat.  

But this is an outline, not a plan exactly. One thing to consider, UBL has done everything he has said he was going to do, and told everybody before hand.  Not in specifics, of course.

More to consider.  Pakistan's military is rife with Islamic hardliners (Sunni) who hate the Shi'ites, and has nuclear technology. Currently, just as in Iraq, you could say the Sunni Islamists have infiltrated the military. (Iraq army amounts to nothing without the Kurds, who are also Sunni, but will protect Kurdistan first and always)

Saudi is presently ruled by a Wahhabi (Sunni) moderate that adheres to moderation --willingness to live with non-believers, even Shi'ites--  but is about disappear in 5 years, maybe less .  Prince Nayef, the interior minister who controls the secret police is about as strict as they come -hates the Shia community and all infidels- and is Abdullha's principle antagonist within the royal family.

Why did Sadr back down when it finally came down to all out confrontation with the US? My hunch is that Sistani or some other wise man from Iran knew the path the insurgent war would take, and said to leave the Americans to them. Bide their time and control the south, keep the force standing.

Musing here, but it would seem the west, especially the US, don't see what the Muslims see.  It is we who are out of the loop and a nuisance to what they see as the impending conflict between Islamic sects. I mean really, what have we achieved after flexing all that US military might?  Nothing.  Worse than nothing from our perspective.

Perhaps we need to decide who the real threat is here and back the other side.  Sitting an all that oil they have the world's industrial powers by the nads.  No oil; no military, no economy. They don't need it, not like we do, they just need to stop the flow. The great equalizer.

This is not an event but a process.  Just a few covert moves and the whole dynamic could change seemingly overnight.  But the seeds of it would have been sown years before hand. And there is more germinating to do. It's in the outline.

Now about those nukes in PAK and India....

(again, just musing here. in light of how out of touch our leaders have proven to be...one wonders...the selfinflicted blindness may be just the wrong thing at the wrong time...)

Fortunately you can read the article at link below:

ttp://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9753.htm

Marek that's what I thought too, until fairly recently, I'm on Agonist record saying the max oil price would be $80 to $100 /barrel for the reasons you state.  Two things changed my mind.

First, the current price rise is demand driven.  I didn't think about the possibility of third-world demand, and while it may increase gradually there is no natural limit for that demand to top off.

Second is that US demand seems to ignore the current price rise.  This surprised me.  Why is this?  It is because oil is cheap.  $65/barrel means $1.50/gallon and that is mighty cheap.  It means that the barrel-price of oil is only about 10% of the cost of owning the average car.  

So, sure we will get increased efficiency, but also increased demand.  By 2020 non-Arab oil will be mostly gone.  I'd guess $200/barrel will sound like a reasonable price.  

I guess that coal gasification is inevitable, and I read about $40/barrel gas from this.  Yeah, right, maybe.  But they'll have to build a lot of infrastructure.  I calculate from  http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/08/02/build/state/25-coal-fue
l.inc that it costs $1 Billion to build a plant to supply 0.1 % of US demand.  Maybe that is our future.

For Gandalf - they could stop selling oil - and starve. These countries have rapidly growing populations with no industry, minimal agriculture, and no natural resources other than oil. They stop selling oil and they turn into Niger or worse.

Marcf - If oil were to rise to hundreds of dollars (real terms) over the next fifteen years demand would collapse, leading to a collapse in price. That's what happened courtesy of the two oil shocks in the seventies which were a lot smaller in price terms.  At eight or ten bucks a gallon that Hummer is costing you one dollar a mile to drive. Not many people will do that.  We'd see skyrocketing efficiency. Also at that price it makes no sense to get oil out of the ground, why not just turn coal into oil.

"http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,369448,00.html"

all the previously assumed uneconomical fuel sources come into play. Coal gassification as you mention comes as well as ethanol and bio-diesel fuel from corn oil. We're very good at growing corn in this country. Also people will obviously seek more efficient vehicles as well as those that need cheaper fuels.  After this last week-end I've decided my Swedish love-boat has had her last tank high-test regardless of what the owners manual says.