THE SWEET PERFUME wafting over northern Iraq does not come from the wildflowers that speckle its rumpled plains in spring. It is the smell of oil and it is everywhere, flaring at wellheads, sloshing from the tanker trucks that grind up potholed roads to backyard refineries in the Kurdish hills and fuming from their chimneys. Nor is this the oiliest part of Iraq. That lies in the deserts to the south where it literally seeps from the ground. In fact the whole of Iraq sits atop seams and pockets of the sticky stuff. There is plenty to go around, if only the Iraqis could agree to stop shooting each other.

伊拉克北部的空气中常常弥漫着甜甜的芳香，你的脑中是不是已经浮现出了一幅野花点点、绿草茫茫的平原春色图呢？然而这种气味却是由遍及这里每一寸土地的石油而散发开来的——随处可见的开采井口冒着熊熊烈火，油罐车轧着崎岖的路面留下了一路的油渍，而它的目的地便是库尔德山间烟囱耸立的炼油厂。其实伊拉克最为盛产石油的地方还不是这里，而是位于通往南部的沙漠——那里的石油简直是从地面直接渗出来的。假如这个国家族群之间的暴力争斗能够停止的话，那生活在液体黄金之上的全体伊拉克人民一定会过着安居乐业的生活。