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According to the New York Times, the U.S. government has awarded more than $107 billion in contracts over the last decade to companies with significant business interests in Iran.

The article's basic thesis -- sanctions aren't foolproof! -- should be neither surprising nor controversial. They're difficult to enforce in a world of multinational corporations: The Clinton administration decided in 1998 not to punish European companies that did business in Iran, and they went on to sign billions of dollars in contracts.

World leaders and clean energy enthusiasts are in Abu Dhabi for the World Future Energy Summit -- but oil ministers from the Gulf say they don't want to move into the future too quickly.

Abdullah al-Attiyah, Qatar's minister of energy, criticized the world for "scapegoating" fossil fuel producers.

"Why did Copenhagen fail? It's because when you go there you feel that someone is trying to create a scapegoat," he said, referring to last month's climate talks in the Danish capital. "You try to blame oil and gas producers."

The UAE's energy minister, Mohammed al-Hamli, made similar comments, telling the audience fossil fuels would "complement" renewable energy.

We didn't write a word about the Copenhagen climate change summit, mostly because we had zero expectation that 192 nations could get together and hammer out a meaningful agreement on anything, be it a grand bargain on carbon emissions or a lunch menu.

The summit also received relatively little attention in the Arabic-language press. Lebanese newspapers reported on Saad Hariri's trip to the summit, but most other regional newspapers ignored Copenhagen, or relegated it to short below-the-fold briefs.

Middle East watchers were buzzing this morning about an Iranian incursion into southeastern Iraq. Headlines made the maneuver seem ominous: "Iranian forces take over Iraq oil well," AFP said. Some news reports had trouble pinning down the exact location of the incident, adding to the confusion.

Turns out this kind of thing happens fairly often, according to an American brigade commander based nearby.

"What happens is, periodically, about every three or four months, the oil ministry guys from Iraq will go ... to fix something or do some maintenance. They'll paint it in Iraqi colors and throw an Iraqi flag up," said Colonel Peter Newell, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division. "They'll hang out there for a while, until they get tired, and as soon as they go away, the Iranians come down the hill and paint it Iranian colors and raise an Iranian flag. It happened about three months ago and it will probably happen again."

A friend asked me what I thought of this ten-day-old article from Foreign Policy's Shadow Government blog. The author, John Hannah -- a former adviser to Dick Cheney -- thinks Saudi Arabia could (and should) manipulate oil prices to weaken Iran.

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon at the Middle East Institute conference. MEI was holding a panel discussion on "Iraq in 2020," in which four panelists made wild guesses about how Iraq will look a decade from now.

I'll have a fuller write-up on the panel tonight. But for now, a quick observation: There was almost no discussion of Iraq's economy. It came up two or three times in the 90-minute discussion -- and the discussion always focused on Iraq's oil industry. There was no discussion of rebuilding Iraq's shattered manufacturing sector, or addressing problems in the agricultural sector, or trying to reverse decades of "brain drain."

Political reconciliation and security are important. But they won't do Iraq much good if they're not coupled with economic development. It's worth remembering that Iraq's per capita income today -- roughly $1,000 -- is one-third what it was three decades ago.

Abu Dhabi's national oil company says it will increase its oil production. The emirate's oilfields are currently producing at about 15 percent below normal; production at most fields will increase to 10 percent below normal in December.

The National reads between the lines and concludes that some OPEC members will seek higher production quotas at the group's Dec. 22 meeting in Angola. That would bring down prices, currently hovering around $80/barrel. Kuwaiti oil minister Ahmed Abdullah al-Sabah said earlier this week that OPEC should call a special session if prices hit $100/barrel before December.

That said, not all OPEC members support higher quotas. Qatar's oil minister, Abdullah al-Attiyah, said production should only increase if the markets run short of crude. Several other ministers want OPEC to wait until oil producers can sell off their excess inventory.

Update: Thomas points out in comments that Mabro advises OPEC members but doesn't officially speak for the group. We've updated the post to clarify that.

Dr. Robert Mabro, a senior adviser to OPEC member states, thinks oil prices are "divorced from the fundamentals" of the market.

I'm always a little jolted to hear OPEC say oil prices are too high. But major oil producers, particularly Saudi Arabia, actually don't want prices to climb too quickly right now. That would squelch any chance at a global economic recovery.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is in Washington today. He's scheduled to meet with Obama at 10:40 a.m., according to the White House. High on their agenda, I'm sure, will be the status of Iraq's election law: Elections are scheduled for January 16, but parliament still hasn't passed the law that will organize those elections.

Anthony Shadid that they tried to bring the law to a vote yesterday -- and failed. For the second time.

Global Witness, an international NGO, has a new report out predicting a major oil "supply crunch" in the next five years that will make oil unaffordable for developing countries. The group predicts that there will be a gap of 7 million barrels per day between supply and demand.

This seems overly alarmist, because there's still a lot of excess capacity in the system. Saudi Arabia alone has 4 million barrels of excess capacity: The kingdom could produce 12 million barrels per day, but it only pumps 8. Iraq is planning to triple its production capacity at Rumaila, from one million barrels to 2.8 million. And so on.

The big news this morning is that the Pakistani army has started its South Waziristan offensive. We'll have more detail on this in a separate post.

Meanwhile, in Gaza: Hamas' deputy political leader, Abu Marzouk, says the group will send the Egyptian government a list of "necessary amendments" to the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation deal.

Hamas doesn't want the deal to follow the conditions of the so-called Quartet, which include recognition of the state of Israel and renouncing terrorism.

The group also wants guarantees that, should it win next year's election, Western countries will recognize its legitimacy.

At least 37 people were killed in a series of attacks carried out in Lahore and Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.

The attacks started around 9:00 a.m. local time, when gunmen entered the Federal Investigation Agency in Lahore. A second group of terrorists raided a police training school on the outskirts of the city; a third team climbed over the wall of a police commando training center.

Meanwhile, a car bomb went off next to a police station in the NWFP, killing three officers and eight civilians.

This is the sixth major terrorist attack in Pakistan in less than two weeks. Last week, terrorists bombed the U.N. World Food Programme office in Islamabad; over the weekend, gunmen shot their way into army headquarters in Rawalpindi and took hostages during a 22-hour standoff.

Most countries felt the pinch of high oil prices last year -- but not Saudi Arabia, which raked in $281 billion in oil revenues. Now, it seems, Saudi Arabia wants those countries to feel a pinch if they stop using oil (h/t Tyler Cowen).

Well, that was quick. We said this morning that the Iranian government might consider a bill to cut the country's heavy fuel subsidies.

Today, the Iranian parliament approved the first article of a draft law which would do exactly that. The subsidies would be cut over the next five years, and the money saved would be redistributed to lower-income citizens (populism!).

Critics of the plan say it would increase inflation in Iran -- higher fuel prices mean higher prices for everything else. Inflation is already running in the double digits.

The AP has a long and fairly convincing analysis of how tougher sanctions on Iran might benefit the Revolutionary Guard. Key quote:

"A lot of companies that have invested in the economy are linked to the Revolutionary Guard," said Alireza Nader, an Iran expert with the RAND Corp. "You can make the argument that if you scare away foreign investors, you are strengthening the Guard."

I find myself less enthusiastic about the prospect of Iranian sanctions with each passing day.

Iran plans to increase its oil refining capacity by 57 percent over the next three years. That would bring it close to producing enough refined gasoline to meet its domestic needs.

So, just to recap: In the short term, a gasoline embargo will drive Iran further into China's orbit; in the long term, it will impel Iran to become self-sufficient. Very effective policy!

The Iraqi oil ministry has signed a deal with Britain's BP and China's CNPC to develop the Rumaila oil field, in southern Iraq, which contains perhaps one-sixth of Iraq's oil reserves.

Three quick points on Robert Fisk's report that the Gulf countries might dump the dollar as their currency for oil sales.

First, this story isn't new. Oil producers have been murmuring about a new currency for years. The Toronto Globe and Mail reported on this last year, for example.

Fisk's story -- if it's accurate -- indicates that those talks have progressed from abstraction to something more concrete. That's certainly not surprising, given the weakness of the dollar in recent years. (His story has been met with a flurry of denials, but Fisk is one of the better Middle East writers out there -- though, I should note, not usually a business reporter.)

Robert Fisk reports that the Gulf Arab states will stop selling oil in dollars by 2018, moving to gold in the short term and perhaps some other reserve currency in the long term. (Coincidentally -- or perhaps not -- the price of gold hit an all-time high today.)

I'm covering a Senate hearing this morning on Iran sanctions, so I don't have time to write more on this story, but I do want to highlight one particularly troubling paragraph:

The Americans... are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs... Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review.

In other words: The Middle East will be the battleground for yet another proxy war, this time between the U.S. and China.

The Iraqi government has blacklisted the Chinese state oil company, Sinopec, because it refuses to relinquish contracts it signed with the Kurdish regional government. The central government doesn't consider those contracts valid.

"Sinopec is blacklisted unless it changes its position and withdraws from these contracts," Abdul al Ameedi, the deputy head of the Iraqi oil ministry's petroleum contracts and licensing directorate, told Dow Jones. "We have cancelled Sinopec's pre-qualification."

The Iraqi government can't form a state oil company until it passes an oil law. And it can't pass an oil law until it reaches an agreement with the Kurds, who don't want to surrender too much control over their oil resources.

Parliament has been arguing over this law for years and hasn't made any progress. That doesn't seem likely to change in the near future.