So that graph [of oil prices] looks like this {draws a ‘V’}.  So what I did is I went to the Freedom House freedom index….Yeah, Freedom House, they actually index freedom in countries….Free and fair elections, newspapers, NGOs, political participation, and I overlaid the Freedom House freedom index on the oil price graph for four countries: Iran, Nigeria, Russia and Venezuela.  What does that look like?  Well, the freedom index for these petrol-estates, states highly dependent on oil for their GDP, looks like this {draws the top of a triangle}…Oh, well that’s interesting.  See, the price of oil looks like that {draws V again} and the freedom index looks like that {draws top of triangle again}.  What does that tell you?  It tells you that the price of oil and the pace of freedom operate in an inverse correlation.  ~Tom Friedman 

So my offhand response to that would be: why on earth would you start a war in the middle of the Near East, thus driving up oil prices to $70 per barrel?  I have no idea.  I’m sure Tom knows.  Just ask him in another six months.

Friedman actually makes a moderately intelligent argument that oil-rich countries are lousy candidates for democratisation.  Though he does not say this, he might have added that natural resource-rich countries are able to live off profits from exports in such a way that enterprise and invention are discouraged and do not have the proper incentives.  These countries do not need to make things and create wealth, because they are already awash in natural wealth that other people wish to possess.  It is a lack of extensive supplies of natural resource, within reason, that spurs cultures to become more favourable to enterprise and invention. 

Oil is a buttress for state revenues and state power.  Every state that relies heavily on it for its revenues tends towards the authoritarian and autocratic.  Therefore, you would have to be some sort of unusually foolish person to think that Iraq, with one of the largest proven oil reserves on earth, would be an ideal candidate for democratisation and a model for the rest of the region.  Your name might well be Thomas Friedman.