Good post, I see you and I have a vice in common, as I am sure do many TOD posters, and that is returning to "old" books, to get a bit of a longer range perspective.  The other day, there was a discussion of good books, and I didn't join in.  With rare exception, most books are forgotten in a matter of a few years, and have about as much long range perspective as a magazine article.  There are a few exceptions, my only "peak" books are "Twilight" by Simmons, I'm glad I have it, and "High Noon For Natural Gas", a bit of a disappointment, (as much an anti-American spasm as anything else).
The rest I have seen are hysterical panic spreaders, reruns of what you can get on the web for free.

When I want to read an early overview of everything we talk about now, from 26 years ago, I go to "The Third Wave" by Alvin Toffler.  He discussed depletion, re-localization, environmental, even the "techno-rebels", the variety of philosophies that would attack all technology not so much on technical or scientific basis, but on a "yearning for a new dark age" aesthetic and philosophical basis.

One more.  "Arabia, the Gulf, and the West" by J.B. Kelly.
Published in the same year as Toffler's "Third Wave, 1980, it is a historical, cultural and political overview of the Persian Gulf.  It can be gotten for (used) 5 bucks on Amason, and given the current catastrophic American failure in Iraq, it is priceless.  Many reviewers seemed to miss the main point that Kelly was trying to make (why is this no surprise?) in 1980, being:  American wealth and power had dwarfed European power and the Europeans, especially Britain (to a lesser extent, France) had been "evicted" from the Middle East by the Americans, at Suez, and even more so in 1967 and 1973, when the Americans began their "protection for oil" special arrangement with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and Iran, and the even more "special" arrangement with Qatar (headquarters for Centcom, the whole Middle East command) for natural gas.  

Kelly makes the point that the Europeans can be expected to be of little assistance to the Americans, and possibly even a thorn in the side when it comes to Middle East policy, given their resentment of being "booted", and the lost oil and money (one can still hear the edge in the voice of the French Total executives when they speak of essentially being "legally" shoved aside and nationalized out of Iraqi oil.  The Japanese will be no happier as they see Iranian natural gas slipping away from them.

Kelly stresses that if the Americans want to take Europe's colonial role in the Middle East, they will have to be willing to police their power, which means a standing army and essentially iron hand tactics, plus a "viceroyalty" type administration.  Kelly was betting in 1980 that the Americans would NOT be willing or able to police the region in this way, and it would fall into chaos.

We are now at the point that Kelly predicted so long ago.  Do we "do what it takes" to retain control in Iraq....if we have the will, can we retain the resources to do it, and at what point can we no longer stomach what it takes?

Kelly's view was that without some outside force, the region would descend into ethnic, religious, and warlord struggles, and any advanced culture would be impossible.  The other alternative was an iron fist Ba'athist/Marxist single party style regime.....ala, Sadam Hussain.  It is a fascinating reread so many years later given the current situation, and one wishes that some of the Bush regime had been familiar with it, or if they are, had understood it's implications.

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout