Iraq & Barking Up the Wrong Tree

"OIL THAT IS, BLACK GOLD, TEXAS TEA"

-- From the Ballad of Jed Clampett

Silly, silly me. I’ve been barking up the wrong tree all along in asking what the Bush administration’s exit strategy for Iraq is.

First of all, the question has outlived its relevance because we know that the president’s personal exit strategy is to take Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House on the afternoon of January 20, 2008, to Andrews Air Force Base where he will board Air Force One and fly home to Texas.

But secondly and more to the point, there is no exit strategy because the U.S. ain’t going anywhere with major American oil companies in line to gobble up the lion’s share of Iraq’s 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves, which is more than five times the total in the U.S.

More here.