I spent my first day here in Austria wandering around the old Schönbrunn Palace, where the family of the old imperial family lived. The grounds were beautiful. The world’s oldest zoo is also there, and I have to say, things are looking pretty busy over here, dispite what some “recessionists” would say.

In fact, both legs of my flight were full, and the zoo and palace were crowded with tours, and today is Sunday!

Now, on my taxi ride from the airport to the hotel, I passed a power plant, a massive one. OMV is the largest utilities provider in the country, so it wasn’t a surprise to see its name plastered on the side of a building.

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Over the past several months, the investment world has turned its ever-roving eye on the Middle East and North Africa.

Since July, four new exchange traded funds have hit the market focusing on these regions. They are the WisdomTree Middle East Dividend Fund (GULF:Nasdaq), the Market Vectors Gulf States Index ETF (MES:NYSE), PowerShares MENA Frontier Countries Portfolio (PMNA:Nasdaq), and the SPDRs S&P Emerging Middle East & Africa ETF (GAF:AMEX).

But the one thing lacking in these ETFs is investments in Iran.

Of course, the U.S. has decreed it will not make investments in Iran, who it considers a state-sponsor of terrorism. That’s nothing to fool around with.

While much of the Western world stands firm by not investing in Iran, other nations, like China and Russia aren’t quite as righteous. Russia has repeatedly stood against strong sanctions in response to Iran’s nuclear program… as has China, but for different reasons. Iran and Russia have a history that goes back to before the Cold War. But China…

Iran is the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, and China, in early December 2007, signed a $2 billion deal with the country to secure oil supplies.

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Ever see that show on The Learning Channel called Trading Spaces? It has two neighbors swap houses for a couple days to remodel each other’s rooms. There have been some surprising results, from an all black room (which was not what the owners had in mind) to wonderfully tasteful decor.

That’s why it’ll be interesting when two countries swap sectors: the UK could be the next oil frontier and Dubai could be the next major hotel owner in Europe.

Let’s start with the more unusual of the two…

The UK has been beholden to imported natural gas since 2004, and could be a net importer of oil by 2010 once the North Sea reserves really begin to run dry. North Sea oil accounts for 98.5% of UK production. Onshore oil fields produce only 24,000 barrels of oil a day.

To give you an idea of just how little that amount is, 24,000 barrels of oil is less than two-minute’s worth of U.S. oil consumption.

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Conspiracy theorists, meet the Nostradamus of Novels: Tom Clancy.

My colleague and fellow analyst, Christian DeHaemer, and I were reading up on the latest news from the South Ossetia conflict between Russia and Georgia. We were passing articles back and forth, trying to determine what was really at the heart of the matter, and how it would affect the markets.

(Turns out, Russian markets aren’t taking it too well… The ruble fell 1.6%.)

Then Chris turns to me and asks, “Have you ever heard of Ghost Recon?”

Back in 2001, military science novelist, Tom Clancy designed a video game called Ghost Recon. Here’s the story’s timeline…

The Russian Democratic Union, consisting of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, is formed in 2007, with the goal of reuniting the former Soviet Union states. Action comes to a head in April 2008, when ultra-nationalists seize total power in Russia and begin invading the Baltics and Georgia. U.S. Special Forces join with rebel factions in Tbilisi, Georgia, but can’t hold back the Russian tide…

Earlier today, in real life, Russian planes flew over the presidential palace in Tbilisi.

This coincidence gave me chills. You can check out the real timeline for the current conflict in this article from Reuters.

The Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, says this conflict, in which Russia is supposedly supporting a separatist faction in Abkazia (an area in South Ossetia), is because Russia wants to control energy routes through the Caucasus.

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