It’s the classic American political tale of self-loathing crafted by the usual suspects. With its government firm and its security at its post-surge best, the Iraqi government needed to quickly bring its oilfields online. It desperately needed the revenues. The summer of 2008 saw oil prices above $100 per barrel and Americans were paying $4 per gallon at the pump.Read it all here.
The best in the business – the best in the world – is Exxon-Mobil. And the government of Iraq turned to America’s Exxon-Mobil to bring undeveloped and underdeveloped fields online to rejuvenate its own revenue sources and ween itself and its people off of American aid.
But three American Senators would have none of it. Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) sent a public letter to the Bush administration’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, imploring her to derail the Iraqi deal. (See: ‘In China We Trust’: Senators Closed Door to US Oil Investment In Iraq.) As the Senate troika stated, “It is our fear that this action by the Iraqi government could further deepen political tensions in Iraq and put our service members in even great danger.”
You see, these three American Senators insisted that Iraq shall have no revenues until it passed an oil revenue sharing law that met their distant standards. Or at least, Iraq should have certainly had no additional revenue. Their letter was dismissed out of hand in Washington. But in Iraq, the desired consequences of the letter took hold. The Iraqi government became spooked as the reportage of the letter turned, as one would expect, into wrangling and infighting by those seeking to leverage it to their advantage in the hotly contested revenue sharing process.
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Remember, Iraq was desperate for income; and oil is, was and will be for some time it’s primary resource. There was no time – nor a need – to wait for a final agreement before beginning to rebuild its oil industry. From the Iraqi perspective, despite the myopic gaming of American politicians, there was no reason under the relentless Iraqi sun not to sign a deal – immediately – with some other willing, unconfined partner.
So what did Iraq do? It governed itself where it could do so without the meddling of the Kerry-Schumer-McCaskill Troika. If these American Senators wanted to make a big stink about its selection of Exxon because it was an American firm, Iraq would turn elsewhere. And who stepped up? China and it’s China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). Name ring a bell? That’s because CNOOC is the Chinese state owned arm that tried to buy America’s Unocal. And Marathon. And Hess.
Were these three morons acting in the best interests of the United States? Hell no.
Now, China controls the oil out of Iraq, a country we conquered and continue to occupy.
If only there were a way to strip these morons of their respective citizenships and deport them. If only.
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