Another good reason not to go to war for no reason.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Oiling the wheels of war History is not always a reliable guide to the future. But the fact that every global recession in the past 30 years has been preceded first by a crisis in the Middle East and then a spike in the oil price does little to reassure those fretting over the economic consequences of a war on Iraq. It may explain why the International Monetary Fund, a body not given to exaggeration, warned last week that ousting Saddam Hussein would not be "a very healthy development", and one that could lead to the panic selling of shares. The fund's image of "fear feeding on fear" on the world's stock exchanges emphasises that the devastation would not be confined to the Middle East. Although there may be political capital in equating the Iraqi leader to Hitler there is none in comparing world war two's reinvigoration of the US economy to any putative boost that America might enjoy if it bombed Baghdad. The assessment this time is clearly tilting towards the view that a strike against Saddam would be more of a burden than a boon.