The ongoing saga of the Iraqi oil patch pie adds a new chapter, courtesy of the Thursday New York Times, and its above-the-fold front pager, "American Adviser to Kurds Stands to Reap Oil Profits."
In today's installment, we learn that Peter Galbraith, former ambassador, foreign policy expert to Joe Biden and John Kerry, and son of the famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith, is in line to reap $100 million dollars -- maybe more -- from contracts between a Norwegian oil company and the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq. As an advisor to DNO, Galbraith and a partner received a 10% stake in a large Kurdish oil field back in 2004.
What's more, Galbraith has long championed the idea of partitioning Iraq, presumably into three regions that roughly encompass the country's three stakeholder groups (Shiite, Sunni and Kurd).
Why does this matter?
For one thing, the American-created central government in Baghdad has long insisted that it has sole constitutional authority over all of Iraq's oil. For another, giving the central government time to devise an equitable oil agreement between the stakeholders was the main goal President Bush touted when he announced "the surge" in January 2007.
Later that same year, in September, Hunt Oil of Dallas announced an oil production-sharing agreement with the grand poobahs of the Kurdistan region. At the time, Bush briefly feigned concern:
"I knew nothing about the deal. I need to know exactly how it happened. To the extent that it does undermine the ability for the government to come up with an oil revenue-sharing plan that unifies the country, obviously I'm - if it undermines that, I'm concerned."
Nine months later, in June 2008, Ray Hunt himself crowed about it at a dinner in his honor. D Magazine's online blog "Front Burner," in a piece titled "Oilman Hunt Sees A 'Soft Partition' For Iraq," quoted the longtime Bush crony parroting the Galbraith line:
"I think that, in the end, you'll end up with a soft partition of Iraq, a very decentralized government, with authority granted to three provinces. The Kurds I think will end up being an example...American democracy is not one-size-fits-all, but, as an example of what freedom can do, it's remarkable that this can happen."
Freedom's just another word for "I'm gettin' mine, boys!" Galbraith apparently figured that out years earlier.
Remarkably, the latest story in the Times states that "Mr. Biden and Mr. Kerry, who have been influenced by Mr. Galbraith's thinking but do not advocate such a partitioning of the country, were not aware of Mr. Galbraith's oil dealings in Iraq..."
Say what? Vice President Biden may not favor partition now (he's not in charge of foreign policy), yet just like Galbraith, he advocated it for years, and recently. In fact, he co-wrote a 2006 op-ed promoting it -- in the Times, no less! -- and hyped it as one of his great ideas on cable chat shows when running for president in '07.
Partition may or may not be a wise course. Still, how does Joe's historic support not merit a passing reference in the paper's story today?
Alan Greenspan noted in his 2007 memoir The Age of Turbulence, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Since I've previously blogged about this at Huffington Post, I'll just say it again:
Desert Storm in 1990 was also about oil, but Bush the Elder tacitly signaled that the motivation was to protect Kuwait's oil fields, which is why much of the world (including Arab neighbors) approved of the limited military action. "No-fly" zones over Iraq, continued by Bill Clinton for eight years, ultimately turned Baghdad's Bully into the mother of all empty suits.
Ah, but the son also rises.
Immediately after 9/11, Bush the Lesser held a megaphone at Ground Zero, promising that "the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon." That should have meant al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, but it morphed, at least publicly, into Saddam's mythical mushroom clouds and WMDs. Then it became freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny, and finally it arrived at the fantastical notion of remaking the Middle East, at all cost and with our blood.
Remaking it for whom, exactly? Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon-Mobil, our Chevron shining bright?