In another blow to the "It’s All About OIIIILLLLLL!" crowd, the new Iraqi government has now taken control of Iraq’s oil ministries.
"Today the most important natural resource has been returned to Iraqis to serve all Iraqis," Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said. "I’m pleased to announce that full sovereignty and full control on oil industry has been handed over to the oil ministry today and to the new Iraqi government as of today."
The whole colonialism argument flies out the window when the Iraqis start getting control back of their own country just over a year after the fall of the Hussein regime. Indeed, of all the post-war reconstructions, I can’t think of one that’s gone as well as Iraq. Kosovo remains a smoldering cauldron of ethnic tensions that remains a protectorate of the UN, it took years for Germany and Japan to become the democracies they are today, and even the reconstruction of the American South after the Civil War was fraught with tension.
To consider what has been accomplished in the last year is quite frankly astonishing. I had always said that the post-war period in Iraq would be long and difficult, and would take years. Yet now we’re farther along in just over one than I would have predicted we’d be in two. Moderates are winning local elections, insurgents are being caught and hostages rescued, Iraq’s decimated infrastructure is infinitely better than they were under Saddam, and Iraq is seeing the growth or a lasting civil society from several directions.
If this is a "quagmire" it’s the best damn quagmire I’ve ever seen.
Everytime the arguement came up “We just did it to take they’re oil”, I kept thinking and if we give them back will you then complement the government? Honestly I know that the idea of taking a portion of Iraq’s oil reserves is tempting (just ask a few of the folks involved in the UN Oil-for-food scandel). In the end I think this does a lot to refute at least one prevelent rumor about the war. I hope that this day will be remembered.
I’m not saying this legitimizes all the reasons we gave for war, but it does much to legitmize the occupation/handover in the face of international cynicism.
I think your comparison to Japan and Germany is off base. The two situations are different, because we have far less ambitious goals this time. Sure, it took several years to create liberal democracies in Japan and Germany — but we did it, and they lasted.
In Iraq, our goals are much more modest. We’re not really making any effort to ensure that a liberal democracy survives at the end of the day. Less than a month from now, we’re leaving Iraq’s governance up to them. If they choose a liberal democracy, great. If they don’t, then that’s their choice.
We could have gotten out of Germany and Japan after a year if we were willing to relinquish control of what happened after we left. We weren’t then. For good or ill, we are now.