ANALYSIS:

Hydrocarbon Law for Dummies

“Personally, I think Iraqi security forces will complete reforms and training in a year or a year and a half. After that, the coalition troops will no longer be needed.” Hashemi was quoted as saying.

One hates to puncture the heartwarming, optimistic naiveté of the Iraqi Vice President, but the truth is that the U.S.-led coalition forces are not going anywhere, not for the next about 30 years at the minimum.

How, pray, has the scribe arrived at this conclusion, one may ask.

That, sirs, is a no-brainer. Read on.

Invisible in the smoke screen of civil war in Iraq, the current U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has been working feverishly on Iraq’s first post-invasion Hydrocarbon Law.

The fancy name notwithstanding, the law is simply about Iraq’s 112 billion barrels of proven, close-to-the-surface and easily extractable oil reserves, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia, along with roughly 220 billion barrels of other probable and possible resources. Add to this another fact of equal importance. Iraq’s true potential is said to be far greater than this, as the country has remained relatively unexplored due to years of war and sanctions. The above-mentioned two facts alone require an on-station presence of decades of some, if not all four, of the western oil giants i.e. Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP.

Simple thus far, eh? Let us proceed onwards.

Zalmay Khalilzad is an interesting character. One recalls that Khalilzad was once an advisor to Unocal (Union Oil Company of California). A diehard Neocon, he keeps getting sent to places where the oil scent is in the air. He was appointed as a special envoy to Afghanistan immediately after the invasion and occupation of that country, along with another ex-employee of Unocal, Hamid Karzai. Karzai, though, made it to become President of that same country.

Together they drew up a risk analysis of a proposed gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. Previously, too, Khalilzad had participated in similar talks between Unocal and Taliban officials—back in 1997. What is relatively unknown is that while that project remained a 'pipe dream,' Unocal quietly merged with Chevron Corporation on August 10, 2005, and became a wholly-owned subsidiary.

So the gist of the story so far is that Iraq’s Hydrocarbon Law, passed recently by a weak Iraqi government, gives long-term concessions to Western oil giants, among them not just Khalilzad’s but many Neocons’ former employers. These oil giants, however, cannot operate on their own in Iraq and need protection from 'overzealous' national and regional forces that tend to unbalance the gravy train.

That brings us to Anwaar’s First Universal Law of Hydrocarbon. It states, “Hydrocarbon at rest tends to stay at rest and Hydrocarbon in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction, unless acted upon by unbalancing forces.”

Something clearly needed to be done regarding the unbalancing forces. Now here is a map of Iraq oil fields turned over by the Commerce Department, under a March 5, 2002 court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force. (Click here for another map if the earlier link does not work).

And here is an interactive map of the dozen or so permanent American military bases coming up in Iraq with billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayers’ money. As of mid-2005, the U.S. military had 106 forward operating bases in Iraq, including what the Pentagon calls 14 "enduring" bases (twelve of which are located on the map)—all of which are to be consolidated into four mega-bases.

Still not there? Okay—here is one more modest piece of information that would surely lead the reader in the correct direction. And that is the little matter of the construction of the largest-ever embassy.

Currently, America’s largest existing embassy, covering 10 acres and consisting of five buildings, is in the world’s most populous nation—China. Currently under construction is the U.S. embassy in Iraq, which will be the largest of its kind in the world, “the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.” With a population of around 25 million, Iraq’s headcount is just twice that of the state of Illinois.

The designs aren’t publicly available, but the embassy is rumored to be a self-sufficient and “hardened” domain able to house a staff of 8,000 people, having its own water wells, electricity plant, and wastewater-treatment facility. It is reported to consist of 21 buildings, including two major diplomatic office buildings, homes for the ambassador and his deputy, apartment buildings for staff, a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and an American Club.

The embassy’s 104-acre parcel, reports the Associated Press, is “six times larger than the United Nations’ compound in New York and two-thirds the acreage of the Mall in Washington. Protected by 15-foot thick walls, its security, overseen by U.S. Marines, will be extraordinary, with setbacks and perimeter no-go areas that will be especially deep structures reinforced to 2.5-times the standard, and five high-security entrances, plus an emergency entrance-exit.”

Doesn’t look like the Americans are going anywhere any time too soon...not to this scribe, at least.

The Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi needs to be reminded of Anwaar’s First Universal Law of Hydrocarbon. The invaders knew that all along, but chose not to inform the gullible Iraqi Veep.

Thirty years are the minimum that are required to ensure that most of Iraq’s Hydrocarbon, if not to the last drop, stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction wherefrom came the invasion without being acted upon by unbalancing forces. The Barak Obamas, the Kucinichs, and the Nancy Pelosis of this world can climb the nearest trees, their public chest-beating on the issue notwithstanding. They all work for the same employers anyway.

Anyone out there that thinks otherwise?