Iraqis will go to the polls a week from Sunday to select a government that would no longer be considered serving as an “interim” body. Two years ago, it might have been predicted that such a milestone event would mean the beginning of a long awaited recovery in Iraqi oil production. The argument ran as follows: a new democratically-elected government, desperately needing revenue to rebuild the country, would make it a high priority to garner investment in its oil sector.

Some optimists wildly hoped that the new Iraqi government could move quickly, possibly doubling its production by the end of the decade. More practical folk simply reasoned that the elections would stabilize Iraq and thereby slow the sabotage against energy facilities, making a steady and more gradual rise possible. Neither of these rosy scenarios appears likely to emerge.

Iraq’s oil production has been going down, not up. December 2004 was a particularly bad month between sabotage attacks against oil infrastructure, weather related shipping delays, and emerging reservoir problems at the important Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq. The difficulty of getting a major, remedial water injection program off the ground at Rumaila is likely to dash any hopes that Iraq could get its production back to even the 2.7 million barrels a day of the earlier years of the controversial United Nations oil-for-food-program.

Oil markets have taken this harsh reality for the people of Iraq on board. Oil prices have risen back to $47 from their recent tumble into the mid-$30s. Oil markets will have to look to somewhere besides Iraq for extra oil, and the list of prospects is getting shorter, not longer, with government interventions in Russia, Venezuela and elsewhere looking set to slow investment in oil fields.

There are two lessons about oil that need to be drawn from the American campaign to remove Saddam Hussein. One is that regime change does not often bring higher oil production. The second is that meaningful attacks against oil facilities can cripple weak governments.

Insurgents in places as diverse as Colombia, Angola and Indonesia have tried to assert themselves against a standing government by successfully blowing up energy facilities. In times past, these attacks had little impact on the price Americans paid at the pump. Plenty of oil producers were glad to step in and increase exports including the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) who carried millions of barrels a day of spare oil productive capacity. But rising demand in the U.S. and Asia has whittled away this cushion of extra production capacity that could be called on to replace supplies from a suddenly bombed facility, and insurgents will now get more bang for their buck, with a major attack potentially influencing prices in a noticeable manner.

Change of government in major oil producing nations – whether by sword or election – has been costly to oil consumers over the years. In the most important cases, change of government has been accompanied by a precipitous decline in production capacity, one lasting a considerable period of time. Iran lost half its 7 million b/d capacity following the ouster of the Shah. It has not been able to restore lost capacity, producing 3.7 million b/d.

Political instability and sweeping bureaucratic changes in leadership are not propitious times for retaining technical capability and sustaining human resources. Modern petroleum earth science and engineering require substantial training and a renewing pool of talent. Some change can be expected from Iraq’s January 30th elections. To the extent that seasoned oil technocrats in Iraq wind up pushed aside from leadership roles in industry by politicians spurred on by the electoral process, the new government could wind up ill-prepared to deal with mounting technical challenges in the country’s damaged oil fields.

Ms. Jaffe teaches at Rice University.