Iraq: The Slimiest Benchmark

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http://tonykaron.com/


Iraq: The Slimiest Benchmark

Political hegemony is achieved when a narrow group of people is able to convince a wider society that the group’s own, narrow interests, in fact, represent the general interest or the “greater good.” Nowhere is there currently a more visible (if artless) example of such a pursuit of hegemony than in Washington’s efforts to get Iraq’s politicians to pass the oil law drafted under U.S. tutelage. That oil law is packaged as the key to national reconciliation in Iraq, forcing the Iraqis to more equitably share oil revenues. What that packaging leaves out, of course, is that the bulk of those oil revenues, under the law’s provisions, would be controlled by foreign oil companies. Click here for the full story

the US Gov be successful in doing that with Iraq oil, its going to come back to bite us all on the a** big time. If Bu$h thinks they (Iraqi Muslims) hate us for our freedoms, wait till they realize we have stolen their countries wealth (oil).

...what you mean. This is the direct link to the article referred to in the OP:

<link> http://tonykaron.com/2007/05/20/iraq-the-oiliest-benchmark/

Slim is not a strong enough adjective for the Bush/Cheney policy driving this reqiurement. It is an impeachable offense.

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For months, now, we’ve heard the Bush Administration — and many leading Democrats — scolding the Iraqis over their lack of progress towards national reconciliation. And the most concrete litmus test cited for establishing Iraqi bona fides appears to be the passing of the draft oil law, which is currently stalled in the legislature and facing growing opposition in Iraq. Washington is not hiding its belief that passing of the oil law (is) a primary test for the viability of the Maliki government. But in the great Rove-ian tradition of Orwellian political communication, the Bush Administration is certainly camouflaging its significance: An oil law whose primary beneficiaries appear to be the major U.S. oil companies has become, in Rove-speak, the foundation-stone of national reconciliation in Iraq — the U.S. media for the most part dutifully parrots the idea that the purpose of the law is to ensure an equitable distribution of oil revenues between Iraq’s regions, defined as they are by ethnicity and sect. But that, in fact, is a relatively minor part of the oil law. The Christian Science Monitor tells us that, in fact, a major reason for the Iraqis’ reluctance to pass it may be that “the draft law in fact says little about sharing oil revenues among Iraqi groups and a lot about setting up a framework for investment that may be disadvantageous to Iraqis over the long term.”

The Iraqis clearly don't want to accept this:

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“The actual draft law has nothing to do with sharing the oil revenue,” says former Iraqi oil minister Issam Al Chalabi, in a phone interview from Amman, Jordan. The law aims to set a framework for investment by outside oil companies, including favorable production-sharing agreements that are typically used to reward companies for taking on risk, he says.

“We know the oil is there. Geological studies have been made for decades on these oil fields, so why would we let them have a share of the oil?” he adds. “Iraqis will say this is solid proof that Americans have staged the war … because of this law.”

It has been the whole reason for invading Iraq:

<snip>
In an excellent summation of ‘The Struggle Over Iraqi Oil’, Michael Schwartz, writing on the indispensable TomDispatch, reveals the oil-grab policy inherent in the Administration’s approach to Iraq from 2002. And it clearly guided the actions of the U.S. once inside Iraq:

Not long after President Bush declared “major combat operations in Iraq have ended” under a “Mission Accomplished” banner on the deck of the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, Paul Bremer, the new head of the American occupation, promulgated a series of laws designed, among other things, to kick-start the development of Iraqi oil. In addition to attempting to transfer management of existing oil facilities (well heads, refineries, pipelines, and shipping) to multinational corporations, he also set about creating an oil-policy framework, unique in the region, that would allow the major companies to develop the country’s proven reserves and even to begin drilling new wells.

Finally, it demonstrates that BushCo tipped their hand immediately after the occupation began, but have continued to deny and lie to the American people:

<snip>

Schwartz proceeds to explain how the U.S. leaned on the elected Iraqi governments to accept a U.S.-drafted oil law by using the management of Iraqi debt to twist the arm of Baghdad. But the government is balking, not only because of pressure from the Kurds who have questions about just how much of the oil they’ll control, but also from broad swathes of Iraqi society who appear to be asking what good is a law that makes for a more equitable distribution of Iraqi oil profits at the same time as ensuring that the lion’s share of those profits go to foreign oil companies. Fair question. And if the diverse range of forces arrayed against the bill is any indication, it may well be a boost for Iraqi national unity — primarily through the opposition it provokes. <end>