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Whether this war is about oil is a political debate; for economists, there's little to debate.
Crude oil inventories are at their lowest level in 38 years, says FTN Financial chief economist Chris Low, meaning that any interruption in oil supplies-such as an attempt by Iraq to torch its neighbors' reservescould cause a sudden spike.
While war momentum drove the Dow higher early in the week, that's because investors were relieved to have some uncertainty about the war removed and because Wall Street thinks the war will be a 72-hour redux of Desert Storm.
But suppose it's not, or, more likely, that the subsequent occupation drags on and takes its toll.
Sure, the U.S. oil reserves are at their highest level. As of March 19, there were 599.3 million barrels in the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve Inventory, which is stored in huge underground salt caverns along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. During the 1990-91 Desert Storm war, the Department of Energy sold 21 million barrels of the SPR...