Iran and Iraq are becoming more intimate in their relations. Which in the Middle East can only mean one thing: It’s the Oil Stupid!
Tehran – Iran and Iraq on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding for Iran to refine 100 000 barrels per day of Iraqi crude in return for two million litres per day of refined products, the energy news agency Shana reported.
The agreement says the Iraqi crude oil should be transported to Iran’s southern Abadan and western Kermanshah refineries by road in return for petrol, heating oil and kerosene.
Iraq has voiced its readiness to increase the amount of crude up to 400 000 bpd, the report added.
“For transportation of this amount of crude oil, construction of a pipeline should be considered between the two countries,” Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh was quoted as saying at the signing ceremony with his Iraqi counterpart Hussein al-Shahristani.
Tehran and Baghdad also agreed on “cooperation in shared oilfields in terms of production and development,” Vaziri-Hamaneh said, without elaborating.
Forget about all the other signs of close ties between Iran and the Iraqi Shia political parties. This is the strongest indication yet that Iraq’s government, and particularly its Oil Ministry, headed up by a Shia Minister, Hussein Al-Shahristani is dedicated to close ties with Iran. In the Middle East nothing is closer than oil.
Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld cannot be happy about this development, which is a virtual slap in their face by the ruling Shi’ites in Iraq’s Government. It is the clearest signal to America that an attack on Iran will result in consequences in Iraq for our troops. Consequences from the thousands of Shia militia men ready to attack American troops should the signal be given. And if Iran is attacked by America it will be.
The sad thing is that I doubt this will deter the Bush administration if, as Seymour Hersh reports, it is still bent on attacking Iran, possibly as soon as November of this year following the elections:
But Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh writes that US President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced that a successful Israeli bombing campaign against Hezbollah could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential US pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations.
Citing an unnamed Middle East expert with knowledge of the thinking of the Israeli and US Governments, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah – and shared it with Bush administration officials – well before the July 12 kidnappings.
The expert added that the White House had several reasons for supporting a bombing campaign, the report said.
If there was to be a military option against Iran, it had to get rid of the weapons Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation against Israel, Hersh writes.
As we know, Israel’s air assault did not have the desired effect, and Israel was forced to introduce ground troops. Even then it has suffered critical losses while still being unable to eradicate Hezbollah, or end the rain of Hizboillah’s rockets on Northern Israel. But that dosn’ mean this failure by the Israeli Defense Forces will serve as a cautionary tale for the Bush administration:
Nonetheless, Hersh writes, a former senior intelligence official says some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff remain deeply concerned that the administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should.
“There is no way that (Defence Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this,” the report quotes the former official as saying.
“When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran.”
That Hersh still has sources at the Pentagon who indicate Bush and Cheney are still determined to attack Iran is troubling. That they make the claim that Lebanon was only the prelude for an American attack on Iran, possibly involving nuclear weapons, confirms my worst fears.
Expect September and October to be a constant beat on the war drums as Bush admninistration officials and the right wing noise machine directed by Karl Rove, raise once again the spector of terrorist “mushroom clouds,” only this time their target will be Iran. It will be ugly, divisive, breast beating, bloody rag waving propaganda of the worst sort.
I just read Hersh’s piece. I am going to go to Home Depot now and get supplies to build my bombshelter. You’re invited. Bring some alcohol.
Perhaps this was planned even before Beaver Creek.
I wonder if the trolls will go away now that everything we’ve been saying hsa been reported by Hersh?
just to add fuel to the fire, from Sy
Booman, I am on my way. Can I bring my own bottle of Baileys? I prefer that to anything else..;o) Yet after drinking that bottle, I will not be afraid. Why? Cause, I am a believer in justice and I believe we, the ppl, can stop them and that we still have some rational ppl in our government that will hold cheney and rummy at bey. At least that is why I am dialectical to this anyhow..
sure. Bring the Bailey’s. It goes well with coffee. And we can sure use a nurse.
Wow. I wonder how reliable this source is. The implications of such a deal are absolutely mindblowing. If the US (or any coalition) were to attack Iran, for example, it would have to cut off any road/pipeline to Iraq — which would be an attack on our “freely elected democracy” that was set up at the cost of so terribly much blood and gold. To attack Iraq’s oil lifeline would put its fragile/illusory government in an impossible position — defend its right to the road/pipeline and face punishment by its puppetmaster, or acquiesce and fall, taking the nation with it into utter chaos.
The alleged deal is also an open and public refutation of the US notion that this is an ideological conflict between the Axis of Evil and the ME democratic movement represented by occupied Iraq. Oil and culture top global ideology every time.
So now what? Will Bush extend his miserable failure in Iraq to Iran, and by doing so start something very close to WWIII? Will Bush cut and run on the “democratic” Iraq regime and try to install a friendlier government? I think this alleged deal makes crystal clear for all to see what an absolute disaster the US has blundered into on Bush’s watch. We are in a trap with no power to get out without deep damage. There will be no light at the end of this tunnel because this tunnel is a dead end. And that was evident for all who wanted to see from the very beginning.
.
Mixed Signals from Crude Oil, Gold, and Tel Aviv
By Gary Dorsch – 13 March 2006
The Bush administration might ask Europe, India, Japan and South Korea to join an embargo of refined gasoline exports to Iran. However, the Ayatollah has already sewn an intricate web of commercial oil relations with America’s allies that could prove very difficult for Washington to untangle.
Japan currently buys 550,000 bpd of oil from Iran, and Japan’s biggest oil developer, Inpex, is planning to develop the southern part of Iran’s Azadegan, estimated to hold 26 billion barrels of oil. Japan is aiming to pump 150,000 barrels per day by mid-2008 and reach 260,000 bpd by early 2012, from southern Azadegan.
And India imports at least 150,000 barrels a day of Iranian crude. Tehran is offering to supply India with liquefied natural gas (LNG) in a deal valued at $22 billion. LNG exports would run for 25 years, starting from late 2009. India is also angling for stake in Iran’s Yadavaran oilfield. New Delhi is planning to build a $7 billion gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan to India.
South Korea refines about 100,000 barrels a day of Iranian crude, and is involved in giant South Pars gas field, an investment worth about $1.6 billion. Turkey consumes about 140,000 barrels a day of Iranian crude. Royal Dutch Shell buys about 200,000 barrels a day of Iranian crude, and developed the Soroush – Nowruz oilfields, which required an investment of nearly $1 billion.
Iran – Pakistan -India Pipeline
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Oil is important, yes, but blood and tribal kinship are even more important, whether it is religiously or ethnically based.
In the Middle East nothing is closer than oil.
Wrong!!
It’s Islam too:
During the twenty plus (!) years prior to the deposing of Saddam Hussein 2003, the Al Dawa party (of Al Maliki) and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq tried through violent means to transform a secular Iraq into a fundamentalist Shiite republic.
Keywords: Al Dawa, Islamic Fundamentalism, Sharia, Iran and Iraq, terrorism, US Embassy attack
The party in power (Al Dawa) in Iraq has a long history with Iran and with terrorism.
1) Large Turnout Reported For 1st Iraqi Vote Since ’58 The Washington Post, June 21, 1980
In another development today, Al Dawa, a clandestine Iraqi fundamentalist Moslem organization, claimed responsibility for yesterday’s grenade attack on the British Embassy here in which three gunmen reportedly were killed.
An Al Dawa spokesman told Agence France-Presse by phone that the attack was a “punitive operation against a center of British and American plotters.”
2) Iraq Keeps a Tight Rein on Shiites While Bidding to Win Their Loyalty The Washington Post, November 30, 1982
[snip]
Membership in Dawa, which means “the call,” is punishable by execution. Dawa guerrillas were known for hurling grenades into crowds during religious ceremonies, and attacks claimed by the party were frequent until the middle of 1980.
3) U.S. HAS LIST OF BOMB SUSPECTS, LEBANESE SAYS Detroit Free Press, October 29, 1983
[snip]
The source said the drivers of the two bomb-laden trucks were blessed before their mission by Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, leader of the Iranian-backed Dawa Party, a Lebanese Shiite Muslim splinter group.
4) SHULTZ SEES LINK BETWEEN BEIRUT, KUWAIT ATTACKS OFFICIALS IDENTIFY MAN WHO DROVE TRUCK BOMB, The Miami Herald, December 14, 1983
[snip]
Secretary of State George Shultz said Tuesday that there “quite likely” was a link between the U.S. Embassy bombing in Kuwait and attacks on American facilities in Lebanon. He warned of possible retaliation.
[snip]
The sources said the investigators matched the prints on the fingers with those on file with Kuwaiti authorities and
tentatively identified the assailant as Raed Mukbil, an Iraqi automobile mechanic who lived in Kuwait and was a member of Hezb Al Dawa, a fundamentalist Iraqi Shiite Moslem group based in Iran.
5) KUWAIT NABS 10 SHIITES IN BOMBINGS 7 IRAQIS, 3 LEBANESE ‘ADMIT’ TERROR ATTACKS
The Miami Herald, December 19, 1983
Kuwait Sunday announced the arrests of 10 Shiite Moslems with ties to Iran in the terrorist bombings that killed four people and wounded 66 last week at the U.S. Embassy and other targets.
(snip)
Hussein said fingerprints from the driver who died in the blast at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait identified him as Raad Akeel al Badran, an Iraqi mechanic who lived in Kuwait and belonged to the Dawa party.
6) 10 Pro-Iranian Shiites Held in Kuwait Bombings, The Washington Post December 19, 1983
Kuwait announced yesterday the arrest of 10 Shiite Moslems with ties to Iran in terrorist bombings that killed four people and wounded 66 last Monday at the U.S. Embassy and other targets.
“All 10 have admitted involvement in the incidents as well as participating in planning the blasts,” Abdul Aziz Hussein, minister of state for Cabinet affairs, told reporters after a Cabinet session, United Press International reported.
Hussein said the seven Iraqis and three Lebanese were members of the Al Dawa party, a radical Iraqi Shiite Moslem group with close ties to Iran.
7) Beirut Bombers Seen Front for Iranian-Supported Shiite Faction, The Washington Post, January 4, 1984
The terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the bombing of the U.S. Marine compound and the French military headquarters here may be a front for an exiled Iraqi Shiite opposition party based in Iran, in the view of a number of Arab and western diplomatic sources.
Authorities in Kuwait say their questioning of suspects in the recent bombing there of the U.S. and French embassies indicates a clear link between Islamic Jihad, a shadowy group that says it carried out the Beirut attacks, and Al Dawa Islamiyah, the main source of resistance to the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Al Dawa (The Call) has been outlawed in Iraq, where it wants to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state to replace the secular Baath Socialist government of Saddam Hussein, who is a Sunni Moslem.
It draws its strength from the large Shiite population in southern Iraq. Thousands of its most militant members were expelled to Iran in 1980 before the outbreak of the Iranian-Iraqi war and joined Al Dawa there. But it also has a large following in Lebanon among Iraqi exiles and sympathetic Lebanese Shiites.
While Al Dawa operates out of Tehran, it is not clear whether its activities abroad are under direct Iranian control or merely have Iran’s tacit acceptance.
8)Baalbek Seen As Staging Area For Terrorism, The Washington Post, January 9, 1984
Al Dawa, according to Arab and western sources, is believed to have had a role in the Oct. 23 suicide bomb attacks on the U.S. Marine and French military compounds in Beirut.
9) Message From Iran Triggered Bombing Spree In Kuwait, The Washington Post, February 3, 1984
Al Dawa, for example, is no household name in the United States.
But it is a name important to this story.
It leads us back to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the ruling figure in Iran; to Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the militant Lebanese Shiite leader who has been implicated–despite his denials–in the Marine and French bombings in Beirut; to Hussein Musawi, Fadlallah’s strong-arm lieutenant; to the Hakim brothers in Iran and their connections to the Middle East terrorism industry.
to even casual observers makes you wonder what our highly paid so called experts and analysts have been doing even allowing for a bit of administration ignoring. Not to mention the highly paid so called experts and analysts in the media.