It was another one of those discouraging weeks in Iraq — you know the type. Bombs going off. People dying in large numbers. Very… well… discouraging. But far be it from our leaders to become discouraged with the project itself. 
And no, I don’t mean this project they call “Middle East democracy”, because that’s just some policy hack yammering. I mean the real Iraq project involving permanent U.S. bases in country and an Iraqi government compliant with (or at least sensitive to) our wishes. Something tells me that project will withstand a good many setbacks of the type that involve loss of life and limb, so long as those lives and limbs belong only to the relatively poor and poorly connected. It was with this goal in mind that our leaders insisted on starting this disastrous war back in March 2003, and if they’ve shown an element of regret over that decision during the last four years, I’ve missed it.
Actually, the “project” was dealt a minor blow in the past couple of weeks with the drafting of legislation regulating the Iraqi oil industry. I say minor because the legislation does actually appear to allow foreign (i.e. U.S.-based) companies to invest in the Iraqi oil industry without significant limits and to repatriate most if not all of the profits from those investments. However, outright privatization of the industry has been left out of this draft. According to Christian Parenti in last week’s Nation, the law has not provided for productions sharing agreements — contracts that allow massive profit-taking and asset management advantages on the part of the petroleum multinationals. (Previous iterations of the law had been a bit kinder to Bush’s friends in the industry.) I’m certain they haven’t exhausted all of their options on this point, and the law does allow them a strong foothold in some of the richest oil fields on earth. But what isn’t really being reported on is the role these efforts play in fueling the insurgency.
Imagine just for a moment that the Iraqis are not simple, ignorant people who have been waiting since the bronze age for us to come and grant them “freedom”. Imagine that people in the insurgency and folks like Moqtada al Sadr have a somewhat subtle understanding of their own national self-interest. Imagine, too, that they have been paying attention to U.S. policy in the region over the past half century… perhaps paying it greater attention than we ourselves have done. How can we expect that they would show any enthusiasm over our apparent intention to settle in for a good long stay? How can we think that they would willingly submit themselves to a government dominated by people who were living in exile prior to the arrival of U.S. forces in 2003? Do we really think that they will sit still while our armed forces (government-run and private) are in occupation of their country and our commercial sector lobbies for greater influence?
If so, we suffer from a morbid kind of optimism, tacking somewhere between Pollyanna and Pangloss. Kind of late in the game for these sorts of illusions, isn’t it?
luv u,
jp
