that England and France import 1% and 4% respectively of Iranian oil. How can this not be offset by national austerity measures in these countries?
Would we be prepared or willing to attempt conservation measures given a similar threat?

I agree that it is a great time to talk about both conservation and alternate fuel/energy sources.

and the media doesn't help. All people know is that gas prices are skyrocketing because of tensions with Iran; somehow this will turn into a reason to bomb Iran. Obama will get blamed for anything that happens, of course.

Yes Europe gets oil from Iran but we don't. The US gets very little from the ME and I heard the other day that output of US refineries has dropped off; although no explanation was given. It is completely insane how the price of oil gets manipulated and we are forced to suffer the consequences since we're dependent on it.

Iran hasn't ever taken aggressive action against another country. We've had this hard on against Iran since t6he 70's because a handful of college student's held hostages for better than a year. Let's look back to 1953, didn't we take out the democratically elected leader of their country? It's time to start treating the rest of the world as equals and show some level of humility.

he let the oil companies have there way with pricing for a decade on top of creating an unstable condition in the mid east.
Call Iran that had been peaceful part of an axis of evil and then invade its neighbor.
What did he think would happen except try to defend themselfs.

$4.04 then.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87719210@N00/2636631066/

GASOLINE PRICES July 2008

It took a while but just yesterday we surged above $4/gallon here in the sandhills region of North Carolina (unfortunately). It actually went up by 8 cents at once. This is really getting brutal. Can you imagine if we take a major hurricane this year in the Gulf?

Meanwhile our politicians in DC do NOTHING about it! We need to drill here and drill now! Hopefully we will do so soon.

they use the threat of war in Iran and they gin up the price....