"Saving Iraq From Its Oil," by Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian, Foreign Affairs, July-Aug 2004, p. 77.

"From Pariah to Belle of the Oil Ball: For Energy Companies, Libya Is Suddenly the Hottest Date Around," by Simon Romero, New York Times, 20 July, p. C1.

Libya's the new target of oil companies after it came out of the diplomatic cold and rejoined the land of the rule-abiding (if there was ever a case of verify first, trust later, it's Qaddafi). Good thing for the regime, which should bank a lot of money, and generally good for the population, for it should increase levels of connectivity with the outside world. But this development does not bode particularly well for the economy or society as a whole in terms of long-term development. As I've said before, relying on raw materials as the primary export to the global economy is just about the slowest way to grow an economy.

Which brings me to a great article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, which was brought to my attention by Ethan Sprang, another regular weblog reader. Read the article for all the analysis. Here's the main point that hit Ethan: 32 of the 34 countries studied by the two authors as suffering the "resource curse" are found within the Gap: Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Cameroon, Chad, Colombia, DR Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Rep, Libya, Mexico [Core], Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia [Core], Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, UAE, Venezuela and Yemen. Like with U.S. military crisis responses since the end of the Cold War, the Gap concept captures roughly 95% of the "resource curse." How did the authors generate this list? We're talking about the 34 countries for whom oil and gas represent more than 30% of their total export revenue.