The Beginning of the End of the Iraqi Nation

The most contentious point of the Iraqi constitution for Sunnis was the provision on oil rights and profit-sharing. Under the new constitution, only existing oil drilling profits are put into the national government's coffers; new oil drilling projects were left to the regional government. The Financial Times reports today that the Kurdish regional government has a new oil drilling project with Norwegian company DNO. There is little indication that the monies made by the Kurdish government will be shared with the central government. This highlights the factor which, apart from the U.S. occupation, will create splinters within the country. Since most of the oil deposits are in heavily Kurd and Shi'ite regions, over time these regions will benefit the most from oil revenues as existing oil fields are replaced by new ones. Thus, over time, the Iraqi nation will become more and more fragmented with Kurds and Shi'ites pressing for more autonomy while Sunnis will call for more federal power. This conflict will likely cause the country to split on sectarian and ethnic lines, which would escalate within the region. While not inevitable, it is quite likely and therefore Rep. Murtha's suggestion of redeployment of U.S. troops to neighboring countries makes even more sense. It would allow us to monitor for inflows of Al Qaeda and the setting up of training camps (in which case we could destroy them, either with air power, special forces or a combination of the two), while allowing us to avoid the civil war. It would also provide a (slightly) safer way in which to stop or prevent this civil war by allowing U.S. troops to return as Blue Helmets (while the U.N. was attacked, there will be much less popular support for attacking U.N. soldiers).