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52 comments on New Iraqi oil law: some facts on PSAs

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Jerome a Paris on January 8, 2007 - 1:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It's a rational question. I have no idea what they are trying to achieve. Surely the US occupation authority knows full well that no oil major will take advantage of this "opportunity", and that it's a PR disaster, but we know that facts have never stopped this administration before. Maybe they actually believe it will work.

Or maybe they are just throwing oil on the fire, for some unknown reasons (justification to escalate?). I don't know. I am sorry for the unsatisfactory ending of my post, it only reflects my own inability to understand what rational goal this "law" achieves.

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Kevembuangga on January 8, 2007 - 2:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Surely the US occupation authority knows full well that no oil major will take advantage of this "opportunity"

Worst case hypothesis: a fly-by-night "western" oil company will be used to plunder Iraqui oil to exhaustion while the whole country will be kept "struggling for democracy".

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plucky underdog on January 10, 2007 - 6:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

> plunder Iraqui (sic) oil to exhaustion

Are you aware of the timescale involved? As a multiple of, say, the US electoral cycle? Clearly not...

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BrianT on January 8, 2007 - 2:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Jerome: Your lead comment (the "lefty" blogosphere) is hilarious. Who is paying for this boondoggle? Wall Street? The free market? Large oil companies? No. The taxpayer. The whole Iraq adventure is socialism at its worst, the transfer of incredible wealth from the taxpayer to vested interests.

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Noisette on January 9, 2007 - 2:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yes Jerome it is very opaque - as you imply maybe wish fulfillment, just tramping on with what is considered reasonable and advantageous for many (not just oil Cos.) or just 'right', whatever that may be. Maybe they think of it as a kind of stab at pre-emption, it won't work now, but sets the tone or the goals for the future, lays a plan that others must follow.

It ain't realistic that is for sure. Anyway I haven't a clue obviously. But 'pacification' is, and always has been, a US aim - one can imagine, looking back to 2003, a happy Iraq with MacDos, a free art/tv scene, women in power, children going to cheerful clinics, cured of horrid ills, electricity all over Baghdad, and exports...now there... what? Dates? Pistachios? But certainly an efficient oil industry, bringing in revenues for 'all' Iraqis.

I guess Black Gold is a curse.

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Buckler on January 10, 2007 - 2:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I've also been confused by the contradictory nature of the Bush administration - and lately found some light on this - by reading Irving Kristol (the intellectual father of neo-conservatism) Kristol's ideas are contradictory.
http://amnation.com/vfr/archives/001679.htm

Politicians will use theories of the intellectual community as the basis for their decisions and policy. The theory-to-politics follows "GIGO" garbage in garbage out.

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