With reports of booming profits in Iraq oil production, are we witnessing the emergence of a new argument to maintain the occupation?

Namely: The longer we stay in the dump, the less we pay at the pump. Or, in simpler terms - it's the gas, stupid.

The General Accounting Office reminds us that the embattled, occupied Mesopotamian nation is a oil-rich dynamo when the pumps are working. A GAO report released this week notes that oil earning totalled $32.9 billion from January through June, and estimates Iraq will earn $67 billion to $79 billion in oil sales this year.

While the oil production figures are nowhere near pre-war levels, record high oil prices mean that Iraq's government could post a budget surplus of more than $50 billion by year's end, according to a story in the McClatchey News Service.

Since Iraq has the oil, why not take it? After all, we've got an oil shortage over here. Our SUVs are running on empty, and upper-income boomers are wondering if that tire-pressure suggestion just might cover commute budgets. It's not unlikely that an oil piracy brainstorm will bust loose from the bull pens of the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute.

After all, it's not like long-suffering Iraqi citizens are enjoying the fruits of this petro-bounty. The McClatchey story says:

"However, investment spending by the Iraqi ministries that are responsible for oil, water and electricity declined sharply from 2005 to 2007. The GAO said that Oil Ministry spending fell by an annual rate of 92 percent, Electricity Ministry spending by 93 percent and Water Ministry spending by 13 percent. All three ministries affect Iraqi citizens' quality of life and thus support for the struggling elected government.

"While Iraq has amassed budget surpluses, the U.S. Congress has appropriated roughly $48 billion since 2003 for efforts to stabilize and reconstruct the invaded nation. As of this June, the GAO said, about $42 billion of that money had been spent.

"Just 1 percent of what Iraq spent from 2005 through 2007 went toward expenditures such as maintaining U.S.- and Iraqi-funded investment in buildings, water supplies and power-generation facilities."

So... the Iraqi government isn't budgeting improvements in the infrastructure, even though it's sitting on sizable oil profits... that the puppet poo-bahs don't really need because (also long-suffering) American taxpayers are tapped to pay for the reconstruction projects. All the while, the Iraqi lifestyle isn't exactly air-conditioned and foam-padded; just because our tax dollars have been "spent" doesn't guarantee "spent wisely." Iraqi civilians still suffer through unreliable power and water supplies, and face an uncertain future at the dawn of each day. The war has left hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of Iraqis dead, and about 4.5 million refugees

Time magazine this week provides a glimpse of one Iraqi city, Samarra:

"On the market street near the shrine, civilians blame the Shi'ite-dominated government in Baghdad, and the police force it has sent to the city, for failing to provide jobs. "Unemployment is high. We apply for jobs with the police and they reject us," yelled one shopkeeper in a crowd of angry civilians — many of whom echoed his grievance. "How could you secure the town without the people of the town?" called another. "Each [commander] has his own people who he has already picked . . . They bring their own people from Najaf, Balad, and Karbala." Others blamed the security forces for involvement in a "conspiracy" to deny the people the electricity and water needed to run their shops. "Listen to me, if you're angry about power, just know there are some other areas where people are buying their water," said Mohammed, trying to calm the crowd. "I am one of those people. I have to buy water!" yelled a bystander."

We're told there's money, money, money. Oil money. American tax money. So, even in the shifting sands of the mysterious Mideast, springboard of world civilization and home-base of some really bad nightclub tippers, this doesn't make a lick of sense. Where's all the money going?

Here's how the new paradigm will unfold: Since the Iraqis aren't spending their petrodollars properly, a more responsible entity... like, say, the U.S... should take control of this sizable nest-egg and steer its riches toward responsible civic improvements. As history indicates, oil is just too precious a commodity to trust to local yokels.

At home, this hard-bottom, "classic" imperialism will be shilled as a means of lowering our gas pump prices until offshore wells can be drilled, new nuclear plants can come on line, and the ANWR dotted with derricks and filled jovial, bearded reality-show truckers. As everyone can expect, this process will eventually drop gas back down to 47 cents a gallon - so free barbecue can be distributed with American paychecks and "Roller Derby" can return to prime time, where it belongs. It'll be 1957, all over again.

Before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, then-Deputy Defense Secretary declared that Iraq's oil proceeds would cover the cost of the war and the expense of rebuilding the country after Saddam Hussein was removed from power, the McClatchey story reminds us.

"To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," Wolfowitz told the House Budget Committee on Feb. 28, 2003.

McCain's hundred-year crusade may have a silver lining, after all.