President Bush’s “major strategic victory” in Iraq doesn’t seem to preclude major attacks on Iraqi infrastructure by anti-US forces.

Crude oil prices surged above $107 a barrel today after saboteurs attacked a key export pipeline in the south of the country.

The attack is expected to halt about a third of the country’s 1.6m barrels a day of crude oil exports for several days, according to the Financial Times.

In morning trade in London, West Texas Intermediate rose $1.14 to $107.04 a barrel.

“Something’s got to give – and I’m betting it’s going to be energy, ” says commodities expert Eric Rosemen.

“In fact, I’d say that by the end of the year, crude oil and the rest of the energy complex will suffer a long overdue correction. That’s because I see global demand slowing amid a decline in consumption and growing inventories.

“Oil nationalism is in the driver’s seat now,” says James Howard Kunstler in The Daily Reckoning.

“The bottom line is that high prices for oil is hardly the only thing America has to worry about. Pretty soon the US will have to worry about getting the oil at any price — meaning, we’re in for shortages and supply disruptions sooner rather than later.”