While we made a strategic decision not to bother with the traditional retrospective pieces looking back at 2009, we feel it's only necessary to tip our hats to what must be the best unsubstantiated political conspiracy theory reported as fact by a major Hungarian daily, especially because the award goes not to one of the political dailies we're so sick of having to treat as serious news sources, but to tabloid Blikk.

According to this infographically-enabled feature published before the break, the Hungarian government's decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan and to accept a former Guantánamo inmate was done in exchange for a pledge by the US to support efforts by Hungarian oil company MOL's operations in northern Iraq.

Citing "high-ranking government officials," the paper writes that during Gordon Bajnai's recent visit to Washington, the PM arranged the "secret deal" with US Vice President Joe Biden. In addition to helping MOL overcome Iraqi objections to it exploiting gas fields it discovered in the north of the country, as part of the deal the US allegedly agreed to help finance construction of the Nabucco pipeline.

Whether it's true or not we have no idea, though if they could have somehow worked in a few hookers and a numbered Swiss bank account or two, everyone would have been more likely to believe it actually happened.