The Aircraft That Blew Up The World

One Of The Consequences Of The Iranian Revolution Has Been An Explosion Of History. A Country Once Known Only From British Consular Reports And Intrepid Travelogues Is Now Awash With Historical Documents, Letters, Diaries, Grainy Video, Weblogs And Secret Police Files Of Questionable Authenticity.

Osama Bin Laden, The Saudi-born Revolutionary Who Is Believed By Most Arab And Iranian Observers To Be The Inspiration Of The Attacks In New York And Washington, Is The Best Known Of The Islamic Militants To Have Emerged In The Past 20 Years And The Least Difficult To Fathom.

Ever Since The Destruction Of Baghdad By The Mongols In 1258, The Muslim World Has Been In Slow Decline Relative To The West. With Napoleon's Invasion Of Egypt And The Creeping British Annexation Of Muslim India, That Decline Took On A Malign Aspect.

There Are Signs That The Age Of Petroleum Has Passed Its Zenith. Adjusted For Inflation, A Barrel Of Crude Oil Now Sells For Three Times Its Long-run Average. The Large Western Oil Companies, Which Cartellised The Industry For Much Of The 20th Century, Are Now Selling More Oil Than They Find, And Are Thus In The Throes Of Liquidation.

Cause And Effect, The Riddle Of All History, Is A Particular Devil In Financial History; And Never More So Than Today, Where Entire Classes Of Security Are Collapsing Not On Public Exchanges And Stock-tickers But Because There Are No Markets To Establish Prices This Side Of Nothing.