Remember how James Baker, the faithful fixer for the Bush family, took on the job of getting other countries to forgive Iraqi debt? We haven't been hearing much about that, for months now, actually.
I figured because it wasn't going so well. Otherwise the White House and its media echo chambers would have been reminding up endlessly about that bit of Good News on Iraq.
Looks like I was assuming right. Debt and Dollars in Iraq 06/14/04. It looks like up to half the $120 billion in foreign debt may be written off. A lot was uncollectable, anyway. But the Bush administration had been hoping for much more.
Steve Gilliard is commenting on Sunday's European Parliament elections and the elections in Britain earlier in the week: It's time to pay the piper 06/15/04. Backing Bush on Iraq just doesn't seem to be a popular thing among European electorates. Maybe after the two world wars, they don't think "preventive wars" are such a great thing? Gilliard reminds us that it's a genuine puzzle why Tony Blair would tie his boat to Bush's battleship:
The song is over, Tony. It's time to hang it up and let Gordon Brown stand for PM. Even then, that might not save Labour. Everyone will always wonder why Blair went along with Bush's mad scheme. There is no real explaination for it. If Blair had said no, the US would have been unable to invade Iraq. It would have been politically untenable. We couldn't just say nasty things about the Brits and be done with it.
... [T]he mystery of Blair will haunt historians for decades to come. Why did he risk everything on Iraq and then did little to prevent the debacle which followed. Was it some kind of wacky Christian zeal? A cold political bet? It doesn't matter now. If he stands again for election, he'll lose and take Labour with him. Now, that might not return the Tories to power, but Charles Kennedy could well wind up the next PM if people do in the next general election what they did this weekend.
Gilliard is also right about this:
When Bush admitted that he couldn't get NATO troops last week, it was a reality many in the Democratic party haven't accepted. ... The war was never popular in Europe and it wasn't because they were cowards. Europeans know how colonial adventures end, badly. There is no reason to think Iraq will divert from the pattern.
Remember how the Iraqi oil revenue was going to pay the financial costs of the Iraqi occupation? Yeah, I know, that was long ago and far away. It was in that alternative universe where Iraq was brimming with WMDs, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were best buddies, and the Iraqis would greet us in the street to toss flowers our way. In the world we live in, things are a bit different: Waiting For The Oil To Flow Again Business Week 06/15/04 issue.
The ensuing year has thrown a lot of cold water on such dreams. Not only is Iraq years from achieving its potential of producing 6 million barrels a day, but it is also still struggling to achieve its prewar output of 2.5 million -- let alone the 3.5 million or so it produced before the 1979 war with Iran.
The reason is clear: Saboteurs have attacked Iraqi pipelines and other installations on an almost daily basis. The attacks, the latest of which came June 9, are crimping exports and slowing rehabilitation work. But U.S. policy has contributed to the problem as well. Occupation authorities have opted to leave major investment decisions for a future Iraqi government. As a result, they have barely spent what's needed just to get the industry going again. "Time has been wasted," says Vera de Ladoucette, senior director for Middle East research at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Paris.
But, not to fret, Iraqi optimists! If everything foes brilliantly from here on out, things could start looking peachy on the Iraqi oil front by, oh, 2008 or so.
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