The war in Iraq is not, of course, about oil. Coalition troops are there to advance democracy and to protect the innocent. But the consequences for the world’s energy markets of an unresolved conflict in a country that holds the world’s third largest accumulation of oil reserves cannot be ignored. General David Petraeus’s report on the progress of the war could usefully be accompanied by an audit of what regime change has done for the oil sector within Iraq and for global energy security, and by some creative thinking on how the country’s economic strength can be used in the cause of stability.

In 2002, before the shooting war began, the consensus in the international oil industry was that Iraq – free of sanctions and with only limited judiciously applied investment – could produce more than 3m barrels a day from existing fields within a matter of months after a transfer of power.