" ...there are No problems among Iraqis ( as people) whither they are sonnies, shiat, Kurds or Turkmmen. the problem is that the Iraqi politics after 9/4/2003 was built on sectarian and ethnic bases. When you bring Kurdish parties and Shiat parties and Soni Parties you are building politics on sectarian and ethnic bases.
They are not social parties or liberal democrat parties. So it became a matter of Rivalry between sects and when there are elections there would be winners and losers. The Bases on which the whole political process is wrong. Iraqis were not at each other's throat before the war, but they became like that when sectarian polarizations started and each sect felt threatened by the other.
The American administration is the one who laid those bases and after the structure came up they discovered the grave mistake they made and now they have to put down that Ugly structure that they have been building and supporting for 4 years and start from the scratch, which is making them face tow options the sweetest of which is bitter. either to keep it as ugly as it is or bring it down and start all over again.As for the Oil, in order to invest that oil you need a safe atmosphere. The Importance of the Iraqi oil lies in 3 crucial facts.1st, according to the oil excavations ( which stopped in the 70s of the last century), Iraq is the 2nd largest oil reserve in the world After Saudia Arabia ( which means it could easily be number one, once we really figure out how much oil we actually got).The point is that we have lots of oil. 2nd the Iraqi oil is cheap and easy to get out from the ground. 3rd, and most importantly, is that the Iraqi oil dose not have to be exported through the Gulf. It could be exported to Europe and the rest of the western world through the Mediterranean , through the pipe lines which gose through
This is the strategic importance of
Once again .............please let it be known to you and to all the American people, the Iraqi people are not religious Fanatics, and they are not against the west, other wise you would not find millions of them leaving their dear country and escaping this sectarian and violent hell".
8 comments:
Rasheed, what's the deal with the oil law? I remember reading at Iraqi Roulette (?) that there were some serious flaws with the oil law. Your thoughts?
well,
Up till now we have not seen the draft of that law. it has been approved by the council of Ministers and sent to the Parliament to be discussed and approved. But from what we are hearing is that it dose not clear the jurisdictions of the regions and the jurisdictions of the Central Government. The other thing is that it gives the right for foreign companies to come and invest in the Iraqi oil industry and have shares in the revenues of the oil. This is a bit sensitive for Iraqis who always pride that they have nationalized their oil back in the early 70s ( 72 – 73) during the oil crisis.
I personally have no clear Idea, but I have heard well respected Iraqi oil exports (including 2 former, well respected, internationally known Iraqi oil Ministers) making several good points against this law.
Al Rasheed the draft has been released now here's the link, the first one is a .pdf file so you need Adobe and it will take a second to load the second is a .html and will come up right away:
http://priceofoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/Iraqoillaw021507.pdf
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:jqFy2UO8ENsJ:priceofoil.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/Iraqoillaw021507.pdf+12.5+percent+of+gross+production,+measured+at+the+entry+flange+to+the+main+pipeline.&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us
The Iraqi's will be getting more oil revenues out of this deal than the Profit Sharing Agreements with the Russian and Chinese.
Also the reason why you need this law is because without it you will not be able to develop your oil as Saddam utterly destroyed your economy through years of socialism and nationalization, you are going to need foreign investment in your country in order to join the global market and the modern era.
Under Saddam Huessein the PSA's granted foreign firms from China and Russia a 10% royalty fee when oil was only 25$ a barrel, and now our firms will be paying out 12.5% where oil is $60 a barrell and while I'm not an expert on this kind of stuff it's apparent that the Iraqi's will be making more money now than they did under Saddam, and it will be more equally distributed due to the oil clause in their Constitution. And don't forget that these foreign firms are taking alot of risk by investing in this economy as the situation to put it mildly is less than stable. Furthermore; this seems like standard practice for getting oil industries off the ground and I'm sure the Iraqi's will renig on the agreement as soon as the industry is up and running just like the Saudi's, Libyan's etc did.
As to the original topic, basing your system on cultural differences is not that bad if you want to be like Lebanon, IE a hegemonic exchange model just make sure that you don't becom a tyranny of the masses, don't forget that Democracy is not an end onto itself it is the means to the ends of liberalism, individualism, and diversity. Furthermore; while factioning can be a very real problem for a democratic republic, those problems can be overcome through a pluralist system.
al-Rasheed Capital,
I like the way you look to the things in Baghdad; the problem is The American Government doesn't know that or they know but they have another plans, but I do not thing they are that smart, because they are loosing their sons in Iraq every day in addition to Iraqis but who cares, look what happened to us and to our country because of their stupid strategy..
They will blame it all on Iraqis and run away..
I know about that because,
I was there..
"So it became a matter of Rivalry between sects"___In my opinion what made this so much worse was the stupid idea of voting for lists instead of (as in the USA or the UK) for a representative for each local area. I think the constitution was designed by some "experts" from the UN. If so, not all the blunders in Iraq were made by the Americans.
"The American Government doesn't know that or they know but they have another plans, but I do not thing they are that smart"____I think they know a lot more about Iraq now than they did four years ago. So far as I can tell, they went in to remove Saddam, thinking "the Iraqi people are not religious Fanatics, and they are not against the west," and that the Iraqis would soon organise a democratic system. Problem is, _most_ Iraqis are OK, but a substantial minority are either religious extremists, or haters of all westerners, or suffering from some kind of stress disorder after all the wars and the pressure of the Saddam regime. Add to that Saddam's clever trick of releasing all the criminals from jail, which would cause a big disturbance in any country.
Post a Comment