Oil crisis a case not of if, but when

By Harry McGee, Political Editor

One of them had closed down for refurbishment, though. Like a stopped clock, the sign saying how much a litre of unleaded costs is out of its time — 103.9c it says. The place doesn’t look like it shut down all that long ago, a couple of months tops. But the world has marched on since then — 116.9c is the reality advertised by the still-open filling station next door.

That provides a neat little tableau for the Ahmadinejad effect. Or in other words, how the ripples of the Iraq war have reached every corner of the globe, including the Blackwater Valley.