It’s Official: Forever War Is Forever
And so in the end, a war that has taken the lives of nearly 4,000 Americans and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, further destabilized the Middle East, provided one-stop shopping for fledgling terrorists and sullied the legacy of an American president ends not with a bang or a whimper – but with a business deal that will ensure that George Bush’s Forever War is just that.
That is the substance of reports the Baghdad government, seeking protection against the inevitable coup attempts and foreign threats once a draw-down of U.S. troops finally commences, has graciously offered the U.S. a deal that it can hardly refuse: Preferential treatment for American oil companies . . . er, investments in return for an indefinite U.S. troop presence.
In short, a Shiite-dominated nanny state.
Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, President Bush’s adviser on the war, calls the deal “a set of principles from which to begin formal negotiations.” In this case on a rust bucket with too many miles on the odometer and four bald tires, but with a limitless supply of gasoline to keep it on the road so long as it stays away from Basra, where things have gone from bad and are stuck on worse.
There’s something in the deal for almost everyone:
* The U.N. can lift those niggling restrictions on Iraqi sovereignty in place since the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 sooner rather than later, leaving Baghdad and Washington to do pretty much damned well what they please. Which come to think of it, they’ve been doing all along anyhow.
* The Al-Maliki government can drag its feet indefinitely on political reconciliation while getting long-term coup insurance in the form of 50,000 or so American nannies who will rush to the rescue of the inevitably hapless Iraqi security forces at the first hint of trouble.
* The White House can do the deal without Senate approval, while continuing to give the finger to Iran from the mega-bases it has built and wouldn’t have given up under any circumstances.
* American oil companies will get protection from the nannies as they merrily tap one of the world’s largest oil reserves while continuing to charge usurious prices at the pump and reap shameful profits.
So what’s in it for the American people? Uh . . . give me a sec and I’m sure I’ll think of something.
Oh, you mean this was all about oil to begin with?
REACTION ROUNDUP
John Cole at Balloon Juice:
“Permanent bases- whee! Apparently our grand adventure in Iraq has proven to be so successful, we would like future generations to have the opportunity to experience Baghdad in a flak jacket. If you think about it, that is only fair, since future generations are going to be paying the 2.4 trillion dolar costs anyway.
“At any rate, all throughout this rhetorical dance party from the Bush administration, in which we had to take out Iraq because of WMD, then we switched to a new step and stated we were there for peace and Democracy, it has been suggested that the notion of permanent bases in Iraq was merely fantasy from the lunatic conspiracy theorists on the left. As I have learned over the past few years- you don’t diss the insight of the smelly dirty hippies. Once again, they were right.”
Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters:
“The favorable treatment of American investments will restart the meme that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to get oil contracts for American firms at the expense of the French and the Russians. That ignores the obvious point that we could have dropped sanctions and allowed free trade with Saddam Hussein at any time after 1991 if that was our only concern. The French and the Russians begged us to do that from 1999 to 2003. In fact, if oil was our only concern, we never would have kicked Saddam out of Kuwait. We would have shrugged it off as the evolution of Middle East consolidation.”
Cernig at NewsHoggers:
“That magic number of 50,000 troops. How many US politicians have already mentioned it over the past few years? It’s useless as a COIN force (and any authority for such would have to stem from the Iraqi government) but serves as a tripwire to stop Kuwait (or Turkey or Iran) invading – or all those Sunnis armed by the Awakening mounting a new coup, which won’t please said Sunni militias.”
Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye:
“That will certainly provide sustenance to those who’ve been calling the present Iraqi national government a “puppet government” but I honestly don’t think that’s correct. I think that this represents the next, obvious, and inevitable step in a process that began in March of 2003 with the U. S. invasion of Iraq that removed the government of Saddam Hussein.”
Spencer Ackerman at TPM Muckraker:
“Make no mistake: this is Nouri al-Maliki offering the U.S. a permanent presence in return for guaranteeing the security of his government . . . In exchange for a platform for the indefinite projection of American power throughout the Middle East, the Bush Administration probably considers protection for Maliki and his coterie to be a small price to pay.”
Matthew Yglesias at TheAtlantic.com:
“The question here isn’t whether we should literally stay the course, the question is whether or not we should undertake an open-ended commitment to propping up whatever form of Iraqi government will agree to pay host to our military bases.”
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10 Responses to “It’s Official: Forever War Is Forever”
I don’t have a problem with business deals.
I do have a problem when those who stand to profit from them are not the ones paying to make the deals possible..
Corporate welfare, indeed.
[...] Mine It’s Official: Forever War Is Forever » This Summary is from an article posted at The Moderate Voice » Domestic and international news [...]
I’m not one to buy into conspiracy theories about this entire war being about oil. However I’m also not one to overlook coincidences. The oil industry worldwide, even without American companies being able to access Iraq’s oil reserves due to the ongoing war, has profited HUGELY from the war in Iraq. Every barrel pumped out of the ground from Siberia to Alaska to South America is three times as valuable as it was in 2002.
Now it looks as if the Iraqi gov’t is going to flat out offer special deals to our companies in exchange for protection from the chaos we’ve helped foster in Iraq. Companies that have more than a passing connection to many in the Bush administration and stand to reap large(er) profits from the entire situation. The picture forming just keeps getting sleazier and sleazier.
[...] Clark It’s Official: Forever War Is Forever » This Summary is from an article posted at The Moderate Voice » Domestic and international news [...]
It wasn’t merely coincidental, even. This war was about oil, specifically to remove Hussein as a threat to security of Middle East oil supplies, which is a vital US-Western interest in the region. This obviously is not “imperialism” [sic], nor a naked attempt to grab the oil. (We didn’t do it here and now; we didn’t do it in 1973 in retaliation for the oil embargo.) It’s about security and stability (which is why the US still aids the Saudi regime).
Incidentally, Iran is a threat to its neighbors’ oil supplies, and yes, attacks on neighbors’ oil facilities (pre-emptively to make Iran’s more valuable and necessary to preserve) is something it would likely do if we conducted air strikes on Iran. Iran has already issued threats in the past that anyone in the region hosting or helping attacks on it faces attacks on its oil facilities and other oil assets. (First and foremost on people’s minds is attacks on Saudi oil facilities.)
I wonder what the “wingnut crowd” over at the Dutch Lad will say about this. They all chimed that the US had no intentions for permanent bases in Iraq. But Billy Kristol is smiling…
Oil is only one part of the reason Bush went into Iraq. The main reason for the war wasn’t oil, but for the transfer of wealth of the government to Bush’s supporters (there’s that loyalty again). Yes, oil plays a huge role in that, but oil is not the primary purpose.
After we kicked their ass (but before they turned around and kicked ours right back), big corporate supporters (Halliburton, Bechtel, etc.) of Bush “won” no bid contracts to rebuild Iraq. Remember one of Bush’s original plans was to have the oil revenues pay for rebuilding Iraq. In this example the transfer of wealth is from the Iraqi government directly to those Bush supporters who got the no bid contracts. The Iraqi government gets its revenues from oil. Though I’d love to know what happened to those billions of hard dollars- cash- that Bremer gave to the Iraqi govt. which was promptly “misplaced”.
Then as we have seen with the Blackwater scandal, there are actually more private security guards than actual US govt. soldiers. These private security forces guard US government interests, including diplomats. These private security officers also earn far more money than our soldiers do. But it’s the US government who pays these security firms. And of course these security firms are Republican donors. I always thought that the government should provide security for its own interests and not hire mercenaries. We’re actually paying mercenaries more to guard our interests in Iraq than we are paying our own soldiers to fight the enemy.
Then of course Sam is right: the cost of oil worldwide, regardless of where it came from, has increased dramatically, which just puts money directly into the energy companies coffers. Who, we all know, are big Bush supporters.
Those are a couple examples from various industries that benefit from the huge transfer of money to keep this war going. And of course the US taxpayer is funding the US piece of it. It’s so nice to know that when I hear Exxon making those record profits that I helped them out… It makes me feel like I’ve done some good in this world. We may not be able to feed the poor in America, but we sure can make sure our Republican donors live the style they are entitled to. After all there are two types of Republicans, the haves and the have-mores. Waste not on the have-nots.
True. There’s always US taxpayer money if Iraqi oil revenues are disrupted.
Note, though, I believe a precedent may have been set for this in the Balkans, during the Clinton era. (Balkans plus Iraq)
Oh, and if that’s a disappointment, well:
I’m not kidding.
DLS: I know you’re not kidding. In fact you can go to Halliburton’s website, http://www.halliburton.com (make sure you spell Halliburton with two “LL”s) and under Investor Relations look at their annual report. That briefly mentions their Iranian operations, but not in any detail. The annual report also states that Halliburton is pulling out of Iran after it fulfills it’s contractual obligations. I suppose we won’t be invading Iran until Halliburton is out…. And then once we invade Halliburton will find a way to profit.
How do these guys who’ve already been nailed for scamming the gov’t get more contracts? Why aren’t the politicians that back such an obviously crooked company nailed to the wall with steel spikes? Isn’t there some kind of trail that leads from the companies to the politicians or are there no people in a position to do something bothering to look?