"We all just dodged a bullet..."

Juan Cole explains why the price of oil nearly shot through the roof:

The good news is that the suicide bombing by unidentified radicals against the Saudi oil processing center in largely Shiite Abqaiq (Baqiq) was foiled, though bombs did go off.

Saudi Arabia, dominated by hard line Wahhabi Sunnis, produces about 9.5 million barrels a day of petroleum, and exports over 7 million barrels a day.

Folks, the world only produces about 85 million barrels a day. And most of that is used up by the producers so it isn't available for export. The US, for instance, produces 5.5 million barrels a day, but it uses about 20 million barrels a day. It uses all of its production and then 3 times that from other countries.

So the Saudi production is 11 percent of the world total, but it is far more than that of the amount of petroleum available for anyone else to buy.

If you took out the facility at Abqaiq, it would be very bad news...

It's time to work out what these terrorists really want.

Do they want a global Caliphate based on strict Islamic code? Or do they just want un-corrupted, representative government and an equal share of oil wealth for Middle Eastern citizens?

If the latter, it's time we started talking about real solutions.