While I was moving through Baghdad earlier today I saw a group of Iraqis under the morning sun pushing their car down the road.  I assumed it had broken down, but this afternoon I saw the exact same thing—a group of Iraqis pushing their car up the rise of a bridge in punishing heat.  I wondered if the cars were falling apart or had just run out of gas.  The driver I was with said it costs about $1 to buy a liter of gas in Baghdad, which translates into about $3.80 per gallon.  I'm not sure if that's the legit price or the  price you pay if you can't or won't wait in the horrifying gas lines that now snake down the city's streets.  The lines are so slow-moving that you often see cars that have just been parked in line.  Sometimes the owner's nearby, sometimes there doesn't seem to be anyone around.

There was in influx of new cars after the invasion, when the sanctions were lifted.  But while you do see nice cars here—BMWs and Mercedes, mostly—you rarely see a car that looks "new."  Baghdad traffic isn't kind to side panels, bumpers or paint-jobs, whether your in a battered old VW taxi or a Bavarian luxury car.  And the dirt and dust that flies around the city ends up coating everything, including cars, with a thin layer of grime.

One of the good news stories from Baghdad, for a long time, was the dirt-cheap price of gasoline.  I'm not sure why the cost has ratcheted up lately.  It doesn't seem like insurgents are hitting oil pipelines and disrupting the supply and more than usual.  There don't seem to be more cars on the road, either.  But just about every misfortune imaginable has befallen Iraqis over the years, so I guess high gas prices were inevitable.

 

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