Thursday, May 03, 2007
The U.S. and Iran - secret lovers?
Hey comrades. This is not a triumphant return to blogging, cos every time I think that it tends not to happen. So, no long position papers on Marxism, at least not in the immediate future. But a few snippets here and there can't hurt. (Sorry for the lack of photos.)
Iraq is voting on a new oil law, which critics charge gives too much control to regions and not enough to the central government. Revenue is centralized, but management control isn't. Even industry insiders are calling for "central planning" of Iraqi oil - funny how some free marketeers don't trust the free market. And for good reason; as Tariq Shafiq, one of the original authors of the law says,
But wait a minute - isn't Iran the enemy here? Hasn't the U.S. been rattling its sabres for months, accusing it of funding terrorism? Yet here we have its party actively working in U.S. interests. It suggests a few things:
1) U.S. sabre-rattling on Iran is either working, or
2) It's just a front. The conflict isn't about which country controls oil, but which company. Iranian producers still have to sell oil to the same American firms that Iraqi producers do. All the national governments involved support free-market capitalism, because, well, that's what capitalists governments do.
3) The nationalist parties in Iraq are against the law. As Nasr al-Roubaie, deputy with the anti-Occupation Al-Sadrist party in Iraq says, "The oil of Iraq should benefit all the people. We cannot hand out our oil wells to foreign companies with these production-sharing agreements. The sovereignty of Iraq will be compromised." The religious parties, the SCIRI and Dawa, support the law.
This means we have to understand how religion gets used politically. Everyone in Iraq does it - Sadr himself has set up Shari'a courts. But when religious parties oppose nationalist ones, this contradicts the constant claims that this is an ethno-religious conflict (or, as Fox News put it, a war between knuckle-dragging savages.) The media's happy to portray the conflict as religious, hence eternal, and disconnected to any western, imperialist interests.
Understanding Iraq means understanding its political economy and the class struggle - in this case, between ruling fractions tied to international capital and those supporting some form of state ownership. The latter have the support of Iraq's poor.
Some state control is better than no state control. The capitalist state is still open to democratic control in a way that corporations are not. This isn't revolutionary socialism, it's just basic bourgeois democracy. These days, particularly in Iraq, that's what's at stake.
Last word to the head of the General Union of Oil Employees in Basra:
Iraq is voting on a new oil law, which critics charge gives too much control to regions and not enough to the central government. Revenue is centralized, but management control isn't. Even industry insiders are calling for "central planning" of Iraqi oil - funny how some free marketeers don't trust the free market. And for good reason; as Tariq Shafiq, one of the original authors of the law says,
the regions don`t have the 'necessary institutions' or 'required expertise' to develop and operate their oil fields without the help of the central government -- via the reconstituted Iraq National Oil Co. (Shafiq was founding executive director of INOC in 1964) -- or international oil companies. He fears, however, the regions will then be too reliant on foreign companies.This is code for creeping privatization, something the oil unions and most Iraqis are against. But not everyone: leaders from Iraq's two main, collaborationist, religious parties champion the law:
Abdul Adel Mahdi, the SCIRI's No 2, has been one of the top cheerleaders of the oil law; he has been to Washington to assure Big Oil of the "great opportunities" lying ahead.SCIRI is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a party closely aligned with Iran.
But wait a minute - isn't Iran the enemy here? Hasn't the U.S. been rattling its sabres for months, accusing it of funding terrorism? Yet here we have its party actively working in U.S. interests. It suggests a few things:
1) U.S. sabre-rattling on Iran is either working, or
2) It's just a front. The conflict isn't about which country controls oil, but which company. Iranian producers still have to sell oil to the same American firms that Iraqi producers do. All the national governments involved support free-market capitalism, because, well, that's what capitalists governments do.
3) The nationalist parties in Iraq are against the law. As Nasr al-Roubaie, deputy with the anti-Occupation Al-Sadrist party in Iraq says, "The oil of Iraq should benefit all the people. We cannot hand out our oil wells to foreign companies with these production-sharing agreements. The sovereignty of Iraq will be compromised." The religious parties, the SCIRI and Dawa, support the law.
This means we have to understand how religion gets used politically. Everyone in Iraq does it - Sadr himself has set up Shari'a courts. But when religious parties oppose nationalist ones, this contradicts the constant claims that this is an ethno-religious conflict (or, as Fox News put it, a war between knuckle-dragging savages.) The media's happy to portray the conflict as religious, hence eternal, and disconnected to any western, imperialist interests.
Understanding Iraq means understanding its political economy and the class struggle - in this case, between ruling fractions tied to international capital and those supporting some form of state ownership. The latter have the support of Iraq's poor.
Some state control is better than no state control. The capitalist state is still open to democratic control in a way that corporations are not. This isn't revolutionary socialism, it's just basic bourgeois democracy. These days, particularly in Iraq, that's what's at stake.
Last word to the head of the General Union of Oil Employees in Basra:
one central objective of the American political leaders who crossed oceans and wasted billions of dollars, that is Iraqi oil. Indeed we in the Federation of Oil Unions consider this the most important reason for this foul war....
Open the way to Iraqis to manage their own oil affairs.... Those who spread the word that the oil sector will not improve except with foreign capital and production-sharing are dreaming. They must think again since we know for certain that these plans do not serve the sons and daughters of Iraq.
Labels: Iraq oil religion nationalization resistance
