New Delhi, Aug. 26 -- Neel Kashkari delivered the Federal Reserve's verdict from a conference call Tuesday, and it was not what the Treasury Department's war planners had wanted to hear. The Middle East conflict, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve president said, "is now a big driver of inflation" for Americans - which is to say that Operation Economic Outcast, the administration's campaign to "end" the Iranian threat through economic exhaustion, is exhausting American consumers along the way.

oil prices multiplied through refining and distribution into a retail price that Americans see every time they fill up - is the same arithmetic that determines whether the Federal Reserve raises interest rates or holds them, and whether car payments, ...