Bush skating on the thin ice of Alaskan oil

THE late French president Charles de Gaulle once made the acute observation that China was “a big country inhabited by many Chinese”.

Some time later, former US president George Bush Sr offered the following about oil pipelines in Alaska: “The caribou love it. They rub against it and they have their babies. There are more caribou in Alaska than you can shake a stick at.”

The two unrelated statements are united by their stupidity and the fact they say a lot about the current state of play in the politics of oil.

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Encouraging your economic rivals to join forces with your political enemies, while at the same time sending miners into your most precious wilderness, is certainly a novel approach to protecting your national interest.

The Australian