Good news from Baghdad at last: the oil law has stalled

[Robbien]

Source: Jonathan Steele, The Guardian

Glad tidings from Baghdad at last. The Iraqi parliament has gone into summer recess without passing the oil law that Washington was pressing it to adopt. For the Bush administration this is irritating, since passage of the law was billed as a "benchmark" in its battle to get Congress not to set a timetable for US troop withdrawals. The political hoops through which the government of Nouri al-Maliki has been asked to jump were meant to be a companion piece to the US "surge". Just as General David Petraeus, the current US commander, is due to give his report on military progress next month, George Bush is supposed to tell Congress in mid-September how the Maliki government is moving forward on reform.

The signs are that, on both fronts, the administration will carry on playing for time. Bush and his officials are already suggesting they will maintain the surge for another year, and that Petraeus's report will merely be an interim score card. It will not use the fateful Vietnam-era language of light at the end of the tunnel, but it will say progress is under way and therefore more congressional patience is needed.

Similarly Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador in Baghdad, is playing down the urgency of the benchmarks. He has reminded the US media that Congress can take years to make reforms on complex issues such as immigration and healthcare. He argues it is unfair to expect the Iraqi parliament to do everything as fast as outsiders might wish.

That said, the administration - particularly the vice-president, Dick Cheney - and the oil lobby are enraged that the oil law is stalled. The main reason is not that the Iraqi government and parliament are a lazy bunch of Islamist incompetents or narrow-minded sectarians, as is often implied. MPs are studying the law more carefully, and have begun to see it as a major threat to Iraq's national interest regardless of people's religion or sect.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2140862,00.html

[stillcool]

1. Absolutely Amazing...

that they've held out for so long. Good news/Bad news. Bad news..no oil means more bombs. Good news..people in that region know all about more bombs.

[dipsydoodle]

2. So the benchmark has become

a brown skidmark.

[ringtailtooter]

3. That is the real story, too bad it can only be read from "The Guardian"

and not any American MSM.

[nealmhughes]

14. Tis why I start the day with Amy Goodman and rapidly switch to reading the Guardian and then the

Independent and make a weekly foray to le Monde Diplomatique.

[rodeodance]

4. 'old Europe" gets the real story, while the US gets dumbed down!

[Robbien]

9. Yep, it was surprising to see this story

until I realized it was on a non-US site.

[gratuitous]

5. This could take years, says Crocker

We're at 4½ and counting. How many more people will die while Crocker and his neocon pals keep dry-humping this corpse?

[0007]

6. .....these fucking ingrates!

Here's Cheney's Democracy for Oil Mr. Nouri al-Maliki!
Can it get any better Sir?

[Amonester]

7. "How dare these ants READ my bill?" - Darth Cheneyour$elf

"We must bring them our flavor of "we-don't-read-the-bills" Democracy!!"

[Psyop Samurai]

8. Good news indeed...

We (humanity) are in a war against psychopaths. They are organized. They are far along in their plans. We barely have our boots on, and are too cowardly to identify the enemy.

I will take time to read all the comments at The Guardian. As usual, I see the shills & the weaponized drones were quick out of the gate.

It's tragic, and profoundly immoral, that we (collectively) allow the devastated Iraqis to fight a battle that is our responsibility to fight and win. And that battle is against predators, psychopaths, and moral cowardice.

[truth2power]

10. Excellent post, Psyop. I'm encouraged that the Iraqis

are not accepting this law. They should realize that the U.S. promotes nothing but death, destruction and theft of their resources.

[AntiFascist]

11. They are getting ripped off in broad daylight....

they should be studying the law more carefully! Maybe it takes something like this to draw the people together.

[acmavm]

12. Why would anyone expect this thing to glide into passage? The Iraqis are

NOT ingnorant third world hut dwellers. They have a 5,000 year old history. They are the site of ancient Babylon. Civilization was formed in the cradle of the Tigris and Euphrates. They've been fighting off invaders for millenia. I am not surprised by this. Or by their fight against an occupying force.

[MasonJar]

13. Please do NOT let the US steal the Iraqis oil revenue after we have killed

so may of their citizens and turned their country into a pile of rubble.

[yurbud]

15. it is shameful that the democrats didn't oppose the Hydrocarbon Law and use it to expose real reason

for the war.

They are either cowards, bought, or hoping to be bought on this issue.