Has the Iraq war been a factor in the oil price rises?

Please give full description/explanation, along with sources.Has the Iraq war been a factor in the oil price rises?
Not at all. The biggest factor is simple economics, supply and demand.





While the supply is readily available, the demand is so very high that the producers are having difficulty keeping up with the demand.





In the United States, that could be easily addressed by allowing us to open new refineries and drill for oil within our own country.Has the Iraq war been a factor in the oil price rises?
No. Speculators trading on the future market (commodities) were the ones that forced oil prices up. By buying so much stock in oil, the companies were able to drive up the price...this made the speculators rich until they hit the ';ceiling.'; Oil prices have since leveled off because speculation has slowed with oil. Some experts say that possibly 60% of the gas price is pure speculation http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c鈥?/a>





As for Iraq, we aren't getting virtually any oil from Iraq yet. There is too much chaos at the moment to begin the tumultuous drilling process. Although Iraq has made money from the oil it has, the surplus it received didn't even exceed profits that Exxon made. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/05/m鈥?/a>





Iraq had little to no influence on the price of gas.
No it is because of the increased demand for oil from the booming economies of India and China with production staying the same. Source: High school economics 101.





Also the Iraq war had been going on long before the oil prices started rising.





Actually it is interesting that the oil prices started their rapid rise when the Democrats took control of Congress which was about the same time that the economy started having trouble. Coincidence?!
Minor. $5/bbl swings here and there when supply gets restricted because of some explosion - - - those happen all the time, pipelines in Nigeria etc....





Indirectly, the cost of the war is one of many increases in government expenditures that has weakened the dollar, and it is the weak dollar that has been the main factor (the various artificial supply constraints, some of which are identified by the conservatives but some even they miss, are important and perhaps exacerbated by the dollar's weakness but they account for a small percentage of the increase; similarly global demand is a nice story but in terms of bbl/day, it can explain only about 1/4 of the price increase).





It's not the agony of capitalism. It's the agony of central banking.





The wild swings associated by some with the free market are, for the most part, more a function of central banking policy.





The Fed doesn't just fail to react to asset bubbles, it creates them.
yes,,,the reason gas prices are not HIGHER is,because we are in Iraq defending the oil reserves over there.


if we were to leave now,gas prices would soar above 10 dollars a gallon in no time because Iran,Syria,or Saudi Arabia would go in and take the oil putting a strangle hold on the world oil market.
No, the reason is the collapse of US currency.Another sign of the agony of Capitalism.Oil and commodities were used as a refuge by investors,another speculative bubble that already exploded.