Victory is at Hand!

[Hogeye]

As defined by Bush, that is. The whole "surge" and "victory within reach" thing is based on the conquest of Iraq oil reserves.

The reason that George W. Bush insists that "victory" is achievable in Iraq is not because he is deluded or isolated or ignorant or detached from reality or ill-advised. No, it's that his definition of "victory" is different from those bruited about in his own rhetoric and in the ever-earnest disquisitions of the chattering classes in print and on-line. For Bush, victory is indeed at hand. It could come at any moment now, could already have been achieved by the time you read this. And the driving force behind his planned "surge" of American troops is the need to preserve those fruits of victory that are now ripening in his hand.

At any time within the next few days, the Iraqi Council of Ministers is expected to approve a new "hydrocarbon law" essentially drawn up by the Bush Administration and its UK lackey, the Independent on Sunday reports. The new bill will "radically redraw the Iraqi oil industry and throw open the doors to the third-largest oil reserves in the world," say the paper, whose reporters have seen a draft of the new law. "It would allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil companies in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972." If the government's parliamentary majority prevails, the law should take effect in March.

As the paper notes, the law will give Exxon, BP, Shell and other carbon cronies of the White House unprecedented sweetheart deals, allowing them to pump gargantuan profits from Iraq's nominally state-owned oilfields for decades to come.

Full story: Claiming the Prize: Bush Surge Aimed at Securing Iraqi Oil

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Yes, the law gives Exxon, BP and others something like 75% of the profits of Iraqi oil for the next 30 years. Of course, there's nothing to keep the Iraqi freedom fighters, of whatever group, from blowing up the pipelines except our occupation force and we don't have enough "boots" to stop them. There is also nothing to keep whatever real government the Iraqis come up with after we leave from re-nationalizing the refineries. In fact, if I were Iraqi, I'd do just that. Let Exxon, BP, etc come in and build refineries, then nationalize them.