ARTICLE: "3 Oil Countries Face a Reckoning: Fall in Prices Threatens Big Political Visions," By SIMON ROMERO, MICHAEL SLACKMAN and CLIFFORD J. LEVY New York Times, 21 October 2008.

Doesn't negate Friedman's first law, but rather bounds it a bit.

So now all but the die-hard hardliners should responsibly dial-down the "axis of diesel" rhetoric. Yergin calls it a "reverse oil shock."

Ask OPEC's mainstays how they liked the 1980s. Yes, Reagan fans will say he engineered the whole thing with the House of Saud to topple the USSR, but that's a bit much. No one can mandate a price collapse like that. That's simple market dynamics beyond everyone's control but subject to a universe of actors responding to price prompts.

Iran and Venezuela, with populist presidents who promise much and deliver seed corn-munching social agendas, now suffer magnificent bouts of inflation. But don't expect these Monty Python Black Knights to notice their lost limbs any time soon. These guys will go on blustering for a while, even as the "flesh wounds" build up.

Russia is a bit more self-aware, but not much. A captive consumer base on natural gas helps.