Big tobacco's fascination with big oil "bordered on paranoia," Muffett said.
Over the past nine months the two Sudanese successor states were supposed to find a way to divide up such things as oil revenues, border posts and the rights of people living on one side of the border who wish to be citizens on the other.
In addition, a host of problems that have the potential for conflict remain, including disputes with the north over oil rights, border delineation and the contested region of Abyei.
Oil wars, border conflicts, and ethnic strife are the threads that remain.
The oil-rich border has still not been demarcated so fighting for control of the oil fields is still a possibility, although the Khartoum government would then be taking on a recognised nation.
Washington had legitimate security concerns about Iran, a strategically important oil country bordering the Soviet Union.
Syria's businessmen are busy helping Iraq to spend the money it is earning under the UN food-for-oil deal; border crosssing-points are no longer closed.
But with the July 9 independence date approaching, north and south Sudan are on the brink of war over the oil-rich border region of Abyei.
Meanwhile, leaders in the south are likely to resist giving up the oil-rich border area of Abyei if it votes separately to join the north.
Much of the focus on South Sudan's troubled first steps into nationhood has concentrated on rows over oil and borders with the rest of Sudan.
Over the years, the fear of drug cartel violence in this oil-rich border state south of Texas has worried its way deep into daily life.
