Washington, Tuesday (FA wire) - With today’s announcement that the U.S. is willing to release oil reserves independently of its partners in the International Energy Agency, the Bush administration acknowledged that it was fast running out of international agreements to renounce.

“We’re way ahead of schedule,” confided one State Department official, “If you had told me during the inauguration that by this month we would’ve already declared our independence from the UN, NATO, the International Criminal Court, missile treaties, Kyoto, international trade agreements, and the IEA, well, I would’ve called you a crazy dreamer!”

The pace may even be too quick, according to some Administration officials. “Frankly, we’re running out of things to renounce. And with the elections still 20 months away, this creates a bit of a problem,” said one Republican strategist. “Declaring independence is the American way, and it plays really well with our support base. But what’s left?”

What indeed. The Bush administration seems split on how to deal with this impending crisis. On one side are those, apparently led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who believe that the U.S. could further violate already-renounced agreements. “Basically, we’ve buried ‘em, but we can still spit on the graves,” said a Defense spokesman, “To use another metaphor - we’ve driven by the U.N. and mooned ‘em, but we haven’t stopped the pickup, turned around, gotten out, and beaten ‘em with baseball bats. That’s something to look forward to.”

But there’s another faction, led by top advisor Karl Rove, which feels like simply declaring independence again from already-renounced international accords simply doesn’t go far enough. “Bo-ring,” said one highly-placed official, “Been there, violated that. What we need is to get our diplomatic asses in gear and negotiate some new treaties so that we have something to rally the troops against and distance ourselves from in ‘04.”

Still, there’s cause for hope. “There’s always the Geneva Convention,” said an inside source, “We can’t really step out of that now, because it’s part of our case against Saddam. But once Iraq’s been pulped, I think we’ll get some big numbers out of stepping away from that one. I mean, Geneva’s a European city, for godsakes. And they speak French. You’re looking at a 5% poll bump right there.”