US staying the course for Big Oil in Iraq- Pepe Escobar

[Jcrowley]

US staying the course for Big Oil in Iraq

By Pepe Escobar

12/13/06 "Asia Times" -- --- Washington at large and President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in particular may apply every contortionist trick in the geopolitical book to save their skins in Iraq - and the reasons are not entirely political.

In addition to the recently released report by the Iraq Study Group, any other Washington establishment report - Pentagon, State Department, think-tanks - considered by the White House

cannot deviate from much of the ISG. There can be no firm timeline for a complete US withdrawal because it all depends on Iraq's new oil law being passed and US troops being able to defend Big Oil's investment.

Once again, it's the oil. The Bush-Cheney system by all accounts went to Iraq to grab those fabulous reserves. The only way for an overall solution to the Iraqi tragedy would be for the Bush administration to give up the oil - with no preconditions, turning the US into an honest broker. Realpolitik practitioners know this is not going to happen.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL14Ak01.html

[pberq]

1. The real story about Iraq that we don't hear much about

[pberq]

2. Oustanding analysis of the situation by Escobar

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL14Ak02.html

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Although the House of Saud's Interior Ministry will deny it, the ISG had to admit that Sunni Arab guerrillas are being financed - to the tune of tens of millions of dollars - by wealthy, private Saudi and, to a lesser extent, Gulf state donors, following instructions of powerful Wahhabi clerics. Thirty-eight of these have just released a statement on Saudi websites calling on Sunnis worldwide to "mobilize" against Iraqi Shi'ites. This has stopped short of being a formal declaration of jihad not only against Shi'ites in Iraq but also Shi'ites in Iran, as well as US troops. The guerrillas' Russian Strela anti-aircraft missiles in Iraq have been paid for by Saudi money (according to Khudair al-Murshidi, a Ba'athist spokesman based in Damascus, "We have stockpiles of Strelas.") There's no US pressure capable of reverting the situation: this is a matter of Arab tribal solidarity - not a state affair.

There can be no direct negotiation with the Sunni Arab muqawama (resistance) because in essence what they want isthe breakup of the Washington/Shi'ite majority government collaboration and their return to power. The Nuri al-Maliki government - in fact, any Shi'ite majority government - cannot possibly quash militia hell and the non-stop carnage because the Saudi-financed Sunni Arab guerrilla identifies any government as an occupier's tool.

And there's not much Iran can do to crush either the jihadis (not more than 1,300 operatives) or the 40,000-strong Sunni Arab resistance at large: one cannot possibly imagine the Republican Guards crossing the border from Iran to fight pitched battles in Ramadi alongside the US Army.

What could be accomplished - even though it's an extremely long shot - is a Shi'ite-majority government sharing some measure of power and guaranteeing a substantial share of oil-related profits to Sunni parties. But certainly not under the terms of the new oil law favoring Anglo-American Big Oil. . .