> On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 8:31 AM, Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net>
> wrote:
> > Doug:
> >
> >> Note that U.S. oil companies did rather poorly in the recent round of
> >> auctions in Iraq. Companies from China, Malaysia, France, and Russia
> did at
> >> least as well or better.
> >
> > Is this a profitable pattern for Russia? If, as CDoss says, the Russians
> are
> > happy to support the US in Afghanistan, then perhaps they're looking at
> the
> > same scenario: the US does the killing and dying in an energy-rich area
> of
> > the world, then Russia (and others) comes in to bid without having to
> deploy
> > a single battalion. Seems like a smart move to me.
>
> Or quietly supporting insurgents, hoping to draw the US into
> exhausting itself. Wouldn't that be funny?
>
>
As the old man said, first as tragedy, then as farce.
s