Oil windfall boosts Gulf spending

[Douglas Carpenter]

1. fear of war in the Gulf is - in a very narrow economic sense - in the Gulf State's best interest

Now, out and out war could be a totally different manner - since we don't know what degree of destruction that might bring. But, I cannot help but think - and I'm not suggesting any sort of conscious conspiracy - that with so many people benefiting from fear of war - the motivation for normalized relations is reduced while the motivation to "keep fear alive" - just short of out and out war -is increased.