Page 2 of 2 Fighting overshadows Iraq's
oil law By Adam Wolfe
politicians fear
that the oil law could cut off their regions from
Iraq's main source of income.
Vice
President Tariq al-Hashimi, leader of the Iraqi
Accord Front, earlier threatened to pull his
party's 44 politicians out of the 275-member
Parliament if the government did not meet his
demands for redrafting the constitution before May
15. After a face-saving meeting with the prime
minister and the president, Hashimi
backed
away from his threat. Nevertheless, many Sunni
politicians are only interested in passing the oil
law if it also leads to revisions in the
constitution.
Sunni demands are primarily
concerned with creating a strong central
government and preventing the breakup of Iraq into
autonomous zones. As such, Sunni negotiators are
pushing for a larger role for INOC in new oil
developments. It is their belief that Sunnis would
need to be brought in to run the company because
of their experience gained under Saddam Hussein's
regime in operating Iraq's oil industry. They
would also like to limit the role played by
foreign firms in developing Iraq's reserves,
partly for similar reasons.
Sunni
politicians are also pushing for redistribution
based on population, and discounting other
concerns that might be brought into the equation
such as retributions for hardships endured under
Saddam.
While many of their demands are
close to those of the Shi'ite leadership, the
Sunnis appear willing to prevent the law's passage
until their other demands are granted.
Competing Shi'ite visions The
Shi'ite leadership is united in its desire for a
stronger role to be played by the central
government in Iraq's oil sector, if only to
prevent the Kurdish region from growing in power.
The Iraqi oil minister, Hussein
al-Shahristani, has inserted language into the
draft bill that would strengthen the government's
role. Four appendices were inserted into the law
after it emerged from the cabinet in February,
which appear to grant INOC control over 93% of
Iraq's reserves. This is not acceptable to the
Kurdish leadership and is now a major obstacle to
its passage.
However, there is a large
split within the Shi'ite majority over the role of
the central government. The politicians aligned
with Muqtada al-Sadr favor a strong central
government for strategic reasons. Since the US-led
invasion of Iraq, Sadr has advocated maintaining
the existing borders of Iraq, as well as a
powerful national government, because he believes
this will lead to the creation of a strong Shi'ite
state on Iran's border.
Currently, Sadr
seems to be preparing for the downfall of the
government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
For this reason, Sadr's loyalists may prove to be
another obstacle to the passage of the oil law,
even if they believe in the spirit of the text.
They may believe that they can hasten Maliki's
departure by preventing his government from
achieving one of the benchmarks often mentioned in
Washington to judge Iraq's political progress.
They believe that if Maliki's government fails to
reach the benchmarks, Washington will be forced to
begin pulling its troops out of Iraq. One strategy
for doing this may be to insert language into the
draft oil law that they know will be unacceptable
to their Kurdish counterparts.
The other
main Shi'ite faction, the United Iraqi Alliance
(UIA), made up of the Islamic Da'wa Party and the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI), was formerly closely aligned with Iran.
However, it has moved closer to the interests of
the United States as it tries to maintain Maliki's
government. In fact, SCIRI re-branded itself as
the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) this
month to distance itself from the Islamic
Revolution in Iran and give it more of an
Iraqi-centric title.
The main goal of the
UIA at this point is passing the oil law in
whatever form is acceptable. Because Washington
has hinged the prospects of its current "surge"
policy on Maliki's ability to reach reconciliation
with Iraq's other groups, the oil law has become
even more important. Every other group knows this,
and their intransigence stems from either a desire
to gain concessions from the UIA on other issues
or a goal of removing the UIA from power.
Benchmarks, investments drive US President George W Bush's "surge" strategy in
Iraq is increasingly losing political support.
With the Democratic Party controlling Congress,
the pressure to demonstrate that the military
policy is working has grown.
The domestic
debate in the US seems settled on granting the
military until September to prove that the surge
has had an effect on security conditions in
Baghdad. Yet lawmakers are insistent that Iraq's
government must demonstrate political progress by
redrafting portions of the constitution to mollify
Sunni concerns, revise the de-Ba'athification
laws, hold provincial elections, and pass a
national oil law.
As a result, the US
Embassy in Iraq is pressuring the sectarian groups
to pass the oil law as soon as possible. Still,
Washington does have an agenda as to what the law
should look like.
US-funded consultants
had a significant role in shaping the draft oil
law in Iraq. Firms such as BearingPoint were
brought in to advise the Iraqi government and
advocated allowing for private competition in the
oil sector. It is Washington's belief that Iraq's
oil sector will be most efficiently exploited and
managed through the competition of private oil
firms, including foreign companies. As such,
Washington would like to reduce the role played by
INOC in the oil sector. However, at this point
passing the oil law is more important to
Washington than granting rights to foreign oil
companies.
Conclusion Iraq's
national oil law has become an important factor in
gauging the country's progress on political
reconciliation. Judging by the debate surrounding
the oil law, such a reconciliation will not be in
the offing any time soon. Each sectarian and
political group brings to the debate its own
agenda, and these are incompatible with each
other. Rather than looking for areas where
compromise might be found, each group has dug in
and looks to demand further concessions before
voting for the oil law.
This puts
Washington and Maliki in the precarious position
of pushing for any law to be passed, even if it
may be against their interests in the long term.
Washington has hinged its military "surge" on
progress from Maliki's government to pass measures
demonstrating the political reconciliation of
Iraq's sectarian groups. In turn, Maliki must push
for the passage of such measures out of fear of
losing support from Washington.
This is a
situation that the Kurdish, Sunni, and Sadr-led
groups would like to use to their advantage.
Because the debate has been framed in these
zero-sum terms, there will invariably be a loser.
This, by definition, makes the possibility of
Iraq's oil law leading to national reconciliation
zero. It is likely that the law will be passed in
some form in the next few weeks, but its passage
will only hasten rather than slow Iraq's drift
toward factionalism.
Published with
permission of thePower and Interest News
Report, an analysis-based
publication that seeks to provide insight into
various conflicts, regions and points of interest
around the globe. All comments should be directed
to content@pinr.com.
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